call me illegal - reuters institute for the study of ... · call me illegal the semantic struggle...

Call me illegal

The semantic struggle over seeking

asylum in Australia

Ben Doherty

Thomson Reuters Fellow

Trinity Term 2015

2

Abstract

Since the arrival of the first post-colonial ‘boatpeople’ on Australian shores in 1976,

the language used by governments and media to discuss those who arrive ‘irregularly’

by sea has changed dramatically. From earlier descriptors as “refugees” and

“boatpeople”, asylum seekers who arrive now in Australian waters are officially

referred to in government statements as “illegals”, ministers have publicly alleged

they “could be murderers [or] terrorists” and report “whole villages” are coming to

Australia in uncontrollable “floods”. Prime Ministers are reported in the media

condemning asylum seekers as opportunists who “jump the queue”, and “throw their

children overboard”, while discussion of Australia’s policies regarding asylum

seekers is now framed as a matter of “border protection” from “threats to national

security”.

While these discursive changes have attracted public, media, and academic attention,

this paper seeks to ask further: where has this semantic change come from? What

forces have driven it, and why? What impact has this changed rhetoric had on public

opinion and understanding of asylum seekers? And what responsibility rests with

those who report these words and these phrases about these people?

In assessing these questions, this paper will rely on primary sources – the

Commonwealth Record, government statements, cabinet minutes, and interviews with

key policy and political figures – and secondary sources – media reportage, published

papers and analyses. This paper will seek to critique the changes in rhetoric used by

governments and media to discuss boat-borne asylum seekers in Australia,

specifically examining four distinct, and crucial, periods in the development of

Australia’s asylum seeker policy and political debate.

- 1976-1979 – the first ‘wave’ of the first post-colonial ‘boat-people’ to

Australia

- 1990-1992 – the development and implementation of Australia’s policy of

mandatory detention for all boat-borne asylum seekers

- 2001 – the lead-up to and implementation of the ‘Pacific Solution’, including

the Tampa crisis, the ‘children overboard’ affair, and the impact of the

September 11 terrorist attacks

- 2013 – the election campaign and government of Tony Abbott, and its key

policy of ‘stopping the boats’.

These particular periods can be seen as crucial markers in the development of

Australian asylum policy and as critical moments in its public discourse.

This paper will further question to what extent these changes in rhetoric have been

deliberately constructed for political aims. It will ask how changes in language have

been adopted, or challenged, by Australia’s media, and if and how those semantic

shifts have impacted upon the Australian public’s perception and understanding of

asylum seekers and refugees. Finally, the paper will compare the Australian

experience with international situations, understanding the global context of what is,

by definition, a trans-national issue. It concludes with some notes of observation for

Australian journalism.

3

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank, firstly, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, without whose

generosity, foresight, and philanthropy, this paper would never have existed. Your

support for the profession of journalism, and for its practitioners, is commendable,

and in this instance especially, most gratefully received. This fellowship has been an

extraordinary opportunity I could never have experienced otherwise. Thank you.

I would like to offer my grateful thanks to Rob McNeil for his painstaking and patient

supervision, chiefly for his fantastically engaging conversations over my thesis, the

state of the global media, and the problems of the world, over the terrific flat whites at

Brew. Rob’s passion for this subject, his thoughtfulness, and his willingness to

challenge my thinking has improved this paper immeasurably. I would like, too, to

thank James Painter for his tireless assistance, without his insight, experience and

meticulous eye for detail, this work could not have been produced. My grateful

thanks, too, go to Guy Goodwin-Gill, Emeritus Professor of All Souls College, for his

generous assistance and encouragement. I appreciate the time and effort all have

dedicated, always in pursuit of greater scholarship.

I owe a great many thanks to all who read drafts and offered ideas, critiques, and

fearless advice. You are too numerous to mention, but you know who you are. I

would like to thank those who agreed to be interviewed for this paper, or who assisted

in guiding me towards key people: your contributions have been invaluable. I would

like, too, to thank Kellie Riordan, for her enthusiasm and her invaluable guidance

about Oxford, the university and the town, and I would like to thank all of the staff at

the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism for their boundless reserves of

patience.

But, finally, I am indebted to two people most of all: I owe unfathomable thanks to

Kim Wilson for her unwavering support, her faith, and her apparently-endless depths

of love and forbearance. And I am grateful to Molly, for just being Molly, the

sweetest and funniest little girl in the whole wide world.

4

Table of Contents

Abstract 2

Acknowledgements 3

1. Lam Binh and his boat 7

2. Method 11

3. From in-need to illegal: the evolution of government 16

and media asylum narratives in Australia

3.1: Historical perspective 16

3.2: The 1970s - National ‘soul-searching’ 19

3.3: The early 90s - Illegals 27

3.4: 2001 - Asylum as terror 34

3.5: 2013 - Asylum and the language of war 42

4. Australian attitudes to asylum seekers 50

4.1: Opposition to asylum seekers 50

4.1.1: The 1970s 50

4.1.2: The early 90s 51

4.1.3: 2001 52

4.1.4: 2013 54

4.1.5: Good refugees and bad 54

5. The impact of language on public attitudes towards 56

asylum seekers

5

6. Political construction of asylum seeker narratives 61

7. International observations 67

7.1: The UK 68

7.2: Europe 72

8. A Responsibility to Question 76

9. Conclusion 80

Bibliography 82

6

“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can

spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know

better.”

George Orwell, 1945

7

1. Lam Binh and his boat

Lam Binh was first. The self-taught sailor and four friends found Australia from

Vietnam navigating with a single page torn from a school atlas. The page went no

further south than Timor: from there he was simply following a hand-drawn arrow on

the bottom of the page. But on April 26, 1976 he sighted land, and piloted his battered

junk, the Kien Giang, into Darwin harbour, where he dropped anchor and waited.

Lam had a speech prepared for the immigration officer who boarded the next

morning: “Good morning. My name is Lam Binh and these are my friends from South

Vietnam and we would like permission to stay in Australia”.1 He’d learned some

English. Language is important. Words matter.

The words of the government’s response were equally important. Lam and his friends

were granted asylum and as other compatriot asylum seekers began arriving, fleeing

the same conflict and following similarly unlikely voyages, the government publicly

declared it would “offer sanctuary”2 to those seeking asylum, promising the

government’s “full resources”3 would be made available to them. “As a matter of

humanity, and in accord with international obligations freely entered into, Australia

has accepted a responsibility to contribute towards the solution of world refugee

problems,” the immigration minister said in newspaper reports.4

In the decades since Lam Binh’s arrival, the language used by Australian

governments and media in discussion of people who arrive in Australia by boat has

changed dramatically. Asylum seekers who arrive now in Australian waters are

officially referred to in government statements as “illegals”5. Ministers have publicly

alleged asylum seekers “could be murderers, could be terrorists”6 and report “whole

1 Grant, Bruce Grant The Boatpeople: An ‘Age’ Investigation (Ringwood, 1979) 7-8, 14-15

2 Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 31 August 1976)

3 Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 8 February 1977)

4 Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 24 May 1977)

5 Bianca Hall, ‘Minister wants boat people called illegals’ The Sydney Morning Herald (online), 19

October 2013 http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/minister-wants-boat-people-

called-illegals-20131019-2vtl0.html 6 Darren Gray, ‘WA illegals in copycat breakouts’ The Age (Melbourne), 10 June 2000, 10: Damien

Lawson, ‘Refugee! Criminal! Terrorist!’ New Internationalist (online) 1 October 2002

http://newint.org/features/2002/10/01/criminalization/

8

villages”7 are coming to Australia in uncontrollable “floods”

8. Prime Ministers have

condemned asylum seekers as opportunists who “jump the queue”9, and “throw their

children overboard”10

. Discussion of Australia’s policies regarding asylum seekers is

now framed – through the media – as a matter of “border protection” from “threats to

national security”11

. Policy measures such as “stopping the boats”12

, it is insisted,

must be conducted in secret as “if we were at war”.13

Where has this semantic change come from? What forces have driven it, and why?

What impact has this changed rhetoric had on public opinion and understanding of

asylum seekers, and what responsibility rests with those who report these words and

these phrases about these people?

Australia’s position is not unique. Internationally, there have been similar shifts in

public, political, and media discourses. Over the European summer of 2015, the

nations of the European Union have been locked in divisive internecine and external

disputes over “illegal immigration” across the Mediterranean Sea.14

The US has

witnessed vociferous debate over “illegal aliens” in the country “taking American

jobs”,15

while in Pakistan, Afghan asylum seekers have been publicly branded as

terrorists, accused of spreading disease, and of being a drain on scarce national

7 Janine MacDonald, ‘Refugee crisis warning’ The Age (Melbourne), 18 November 1999, 1: ‘Australia

captures another boatload of illegal arrivals’, Associated Press (international) 18 November 1999 8 Scott Morrison, ‘Immigration – especially concerning persecuted Christians and the flood of boat

people’, Christian Democratic Party (online) August 2013

http://www.cdp.org.au/newsletter/august2013/Immigration%20Scott%20Morrison%20MP.pdf 9 Nicholson, Brendan, ‘Abbott slams boatpeople as unchristian’ The Australian (online) 10 July 2012

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/abbott-slams-boatpeople-as-un-

christian/story-fn9hm1gu-1226422034305 10

Margo Kingston, ‘Credibility overboard’, The Sydney Morning Herald (online), 8 November 2001,

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/26/1069825828659.html 11

Bruce Haigh, ‘Australia’s asylum seeker obsessions puts democracy at risk’ The Guardian (online) 9

May 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/09/australias-asylum-seeker-

obsession-puts-democracy-at-risk 12

Agence France Presse ‘Operation to stop boats like a war: Tony Abbott’ The Australian (online) 10

January 2014 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/operation-to-stop-boats-

like-a-war-tony-abbott/story-fn9hm1gu-1226798801617 13

Ibid 14

‘Italy’s illegal immigrations: Tidal wave’ The Economist (online) 5 July 2014

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21606301-more-horrific-deaths-mediterranean-tidal-wave 15

Thomas Espenshade and Maryanne Belanger, ‘Immigration and Public Opinion’ in Marcelo Suarez-

Orozco (ed), Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Cambridge, Mass.:

David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and Harvard University Press, 1998) 365-403

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/abbott-slams-boatpeople-as-un-christian/story-fn9hm1gu-1226422034305


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/05/10/1020914043918.html

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/09/australias-asylum-seeker-obsession-puts-democracy-at-risk


9

resources.16

Around the world, the language used to describe asylum seekers,

refugees, and forced migrants is increasingly politicised and polemic.

“Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,

and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind,” George Orwell wrote.17

The

manipulation of language for political advantage is not new, and its consequences

neither necessarily benign nor motivated by public interest: in his self-promotional

account of the Gallic Wars of the 1st Century BC, Julius Caesar described the

Germanic tribes to the north of the empire as bloodthirsty and uncivilised,18

while in

The Prince in the 16th

Century AD, Machiavelli urged the liberation of Italy from the

“barbarian” foreigners who ruled it.19

And if semantic manipulation can be considered

an ancient art, it is no less powerful in the modern day: Goebbels used the euphemism

of a “final solution” to describe the slaughter of innocents by the Nazi regime;20

the

Vietnam War popularised “collateral damage” to describe civilians killed by napalm

attacks (or “soft ordnance”); while Iraq gave the world “enhanced interrogation” and

“extraordinary rendition” for torture.21

The consequences of changes in discourse are significant. Alterations to language and

thought have the potential to change the course of history, and in the case of asylum

seekers and refugees, the fate of some of the world’s most disempowered and

vulnerable people. In a global order predicated upon nationality and bounded

territoriality, people displaced from their homelands lose rights and lose agency.

Often, they are voiceless in public discourse, defined by the language used by others

to describe them. Their image – the public’s fundamental understanding of who they

are - is created not by themselves, but by others. “Terminology matters because it

shapes our understanding of a phenomenon,” McAdam writes. “If people are

16

Editorial ‘Expelling Afghan refugees’, The Express Tribune (online) 23 December 2014

http://tribune.com.pk/story/810763/expelling-afghan-refugees/ 17

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (Penguin, London, 2013) 18

Neil Faulkner, ‘The Official Truth: Propaganda in the Roman Empire’, BBC History (online) 17

February 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/romanpropaganda_article_01.shtml 19

Diego A. von Vacano, The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin American/Hispanic

Political Thought (Oxford University, 2012) 68: Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (first published

1532, Oxford University, 1935 ed) 109 20

Christopher R. Browning and Jurgen Matthaus, The Origins of the Final Solution: The evolution of

Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 Random House: Germany, 2006) 105 21

Chris Ngwodo, ‘Cliches of civilisation’, African Hadithi (online) 31 December 2014

http://africanhadithi.com/article/1085896414/Cliches_of_Civilization


10

described as “illegals'”, this creates an assumption that they have broken the law and

deserve to be treated as criminals.”22

And the media – as the major means by which governments communicate with their

populaces – play a significant role in the promulgation of this language.23

Journalism

must, of course, report objectively and accurately the words of government. But is it

sufficient for journalists to stand behind the shield of so-called ‘accuracy’ and

‘impartiality’, a mentality of ‘the government said it so we reported it’? Should the

media uncritically report the language with which it is provided? Should it repeat the

rhetoric and narratives of government if those are loaded, pejorative, or

inflammatory? Journalism’s power is great, but what of its responsibility?

“History constantly teaches us,” Foucault argues, “that discourse is not simply that

which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by

which there is a struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized.”24

Lam Binh

knew it, and others before and since. Language is important. Words matter.

22

Jane McAdam, ‘Are they illegals, no? And Scott Morrison should know better’, University of New

South Wales Newsroom (online), 23 October 2013 http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/law/are-they-

illegals-no-and-scott-morrison-should-know-better 23

McKay, F.H., and S.L. Thomas, R.W. Blood, ‘ “Any One of these Boatpeople could be a Terrorist

for All We Know!”, Media Representations and Public Perceptions of “Boat People” Arrivals in

Australia’ (2011) 12(6) Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism 24

Foucault, Michel, ‘The Order of Discourse’ in P. Rice & P. Waugh (eds.), Modern Literary Theory:

A Reader (Arnold, London, 4th

ed, 2001) 210

http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/law/are-they-illegals-no-and-scott-morrison-should-know-better


11

2. Method

This paper seeks to examine the changes in rhetoric used by governments to discuss

boat-borne asylum seekers in Australia since the first, post-colonial, boat arrivals in

1976. It will further question to what extent these changes in rhetoric have been

deliberately constructed for political aims. This paper will ask how that language has

been adopted, or challenged by Australia’s media, and whether the semantic shift has

impacted upon Australian public perception and understanding of asylum seekers and

refugees. The paper concludes with some notes of international comparison, and

observations for Australian journalism.

This paper will specifically examine reportage of government rhetoric concerning

boat-borne asylum seekers at four distinct, and crucial, periods in the development of

Australia’s asylum seeker policy and political debate:

- 1976-1979 – the first ‘wave’ of the first post-colonial ‘boat-people’ to

Australia

- 1990-1992 – the development and implementation of Australia’s policy of

mandatory detention for all boat-borne asylum seekers

- 2001 – the lead-up to and implementation of the ‘Pacific Solution’, including

the Tampa crisis, the ‘children overboard’ affair, and the impact of the

September 11 terrorist attacks

- 2013 – the election campaign and government of Tony Abbott, and its key

policy of ‘stopping the boats’.

These periods can be seen as crucial markers in the development of Australian asylum

policy and as critical moments in its public discourse.

Other discourses, such as opinion or commentary writing on the issue of boat-borne

asylum seekers, or language used by advocates, are excluded from this paper. This is

not to suggest that newspaper editorials, commentary by advocates, or the language of

community opinion leaders do not hold influence on public opinion, but rather to

focus specifically on the influence of the language used by governments, and

broadcast by the media, to describe asylum seekers and policies towards them.

12

Because of a presumed authority, and privileged access to information, government

discourse is disproportionately influential in setting the terms of discourse around

boat-borne asylum seekers.25

Pronouncements from executive government are

presented as ‘factual’ and objective. Bearing the imprimatur of the executive, they are

presented as ‘official’ sources, and carry the credibility that imbues.26

“It is important

to bear in mind that politicians making statements in their official capacity are

expected to have more information at hand and to be better briefed than members of

the general public. They are expected to have access to factual information, and to

truthfully report that information in their public statements,” Pedersen et al write.27

Taylor argues the Australian government’s immigration department (under its various

nomenclatures) has been “extremely active in ensuring that the Government ‘spin’ is

communicated to the public”, in providing its version of events to the media, and in

assiduously countering what it regards to be “inaccurate media reporting”.28

Other

writers, such as Mares, and former immigration ministers, such as Chris Evans,

concur, arguing the department is disproportionately influential in framing public

discussion on asylum seekers and refugees, and in dominating, or at least heavily

swaying, the language used in public discourse.29

30

In addition, because information about asylum seekers arriving by boat is often very

difficult, if not impossible, to source independently, and because access to onshore or

offshore detention facilities for asylum seekers is highly-restricted, the media is often

forced to rely, sometimes exclusively, on the official version of events supplied by

25

S. Taylor, ‘The importance of human rights talk in asylum seeker advocacy’ (2001) 24(1) UNSW

Law Journal 196-197 26

N. Klocker & K.M. Dunn, ‘Who's driving the asylum debate? Newspaper and government

representations of asylum seekers’ (2003) 109 Media International Australia 71-92. 27

A. Pedersen, S. Watt and S. Hanser, ‘The role of false beliefs in the community’s and the federal

governments’ attitudes toward Australian asylum seekers’ (2006) 41(1) Australian Journal of Social

Issues 105-124 28

Taylor, Above n 25 29

Angela Romano, ‘Journalism’s Role in mediating public conversation on asylum seekers and

refugees in Australia’ (2004) 26(2) Australian Journalism Review 48 Also: Peter Mares, Borderline:

Australia’s response to refugees and asylum seekers in the wake of the Tampa (Sydney: UNSW Press,

2nd

ed, 2002) 27-28; Phillips, M., ‘Working with the media: Notes for refugee advocates’ (2000) 8

Forced Migration Review 33; S. Taylor, ‘Achieving reform of Australian asylum-seeker law and

policy’ (2001) 24 Just Policy 41-54; Ward, I. ‘The Tampa affair, wedge politics and a lesson for

political journalism’ (2002) 24(1) Australian Journalism Review 36 30

Interview with Chris Evans, Australian immigration minister 2007-2010 (By Skype, 16 June 2015)

13

governments. The absence of independent information also often means that official

statements from government sources can rarely be forcefully challenged.31

This is not absolute. Technological advances, in particular access to mobile phones,

web-based email, and encrypted messaging services, have allowed asylum seekers

held in detention in Australia and on Nauru and Manus Island to communicate

directly with journalists, often countering, and occasionally, disproving government

narratives and accounts.32

Nor is it to disregard the media’s own agency in framing

the asylum debate. Media organisations are not mere regurgitators of government

rhetoric, but actively choose which stories to cover, and the tone and language of their

reportage. The media also choose what not to report. As well as the power of

government narratives accepted and broadcast by the media, this paper will examine

the influence of the ‘narrative not chosen’, those rejected or simply not reported by

the media.

This dissertation will limit discussion to boat-borne asylum seekers: foreign nationals

or stateless persons who arrive, or attempt to arrive, on Australian territory or in

Australian territorial waters, without permission or holding a visa, by unauthorised

vessel via the open seas. The issues of asylum seekers who arrive by plane (that is,

with a valid visa, who then claim asylum), or who arrive through Australia’s offshore

humanitarian program, will not be addressed here. This distinction reflects a policy

divide currently imposed by the Australian government: asylum seekers who arrive by

boat are mandatorily detained before being removed from the country for ‘offshore

processing’ and resettlement in another country, those who arrive by other methods

are not.33

But, more critically for this paper, this distinction reflects also a clear rhetorical divide

imposed between the two groups. Government and ministerial statements, and,

31

Klocker, and Dunn Above n 26 32

Oliver Laughland, ‘PNG not allowing witnesses to Reza Berati’s death to leave Manus Island’ The

Guardian (online) 21 July 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/png-reza-baratis-

witnesses-to-leave-manus: Ben Doherty, ‘Manus Island: video footage emerges of guards rushing

protest compound’ The Guardian (online) 20 January 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/australia-

news/2015/jan/20/manus-island-video-footage-emerges-of-riot-police-rushing-protest-compound 33

Janet Phillips, ‘Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?’ (Research Paper, Parliament of

Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services, Parliamentary Library, 2 March 2015)

http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/bn/sp/asylumfacts.pdf

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/png-reza-baratis-witnesses-to-leave-manus


14

consequently, media reports, regularly refer to refugees who come to Australia “the

right way” or through “the proper channels”34

of Australia’s formal resettlement

program, as opposed to those who come irregularly by boat, who are cast as having

subverted proper procedures with illegitimate asylum claims, as exploitative, or as

posing a threat to Australian identity and security.35

These dichotomous narratives

contribute to divergent community views on the two groups, a belief that asylum

seekers’ presence in Australia “would be okay if they came through the proper

channels”.36

As Betts found, in a study of opinion polls conducted between 1991 and

2002: “the public makes a distinction between refugees selected under the offshore

program and self-selected asylum seekers (who arrive by boat): hostility to boatpeople

does not mean hostility to refugees”.37

In examining changes in discourse, this paper will rely on primary and secondary

sources. The Commonwealth Record, cabinet documents and government media

releases will be assessed and analysed, as will media reportage of government

statements, policies, and actions. This will be augmented by interviews with former

immigration ministers, secretaries of the department of immigration, senior

departmental staff, and private citizens with involvement in Australia’s asylum

policies and public debate.

In addition to outlining the changes in government and media rhetoric around asylum

and examining their impact, this paper will also examine to what extent those changes

have been deliberately encouraged or manipulated to shift public opinion, or assist in

the prosecution of policy. Finally, this paper was written at the Reuters Institute for

the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford during Trinity Term of 2015,

which allowed the author to observe, first-hand, the political and public debates over

asylum seekers in the UK and Europe. Chapter Seven of this paper will compare the

Australian experience with international examples, understanding the global context

of what is, by definition, a trans-national issue. The paper concludes with some notes

of observation for Australian journalism.

34

Phillip Ruddock, immigration minister, quoted in Barrett, Rebecca, ‘Immigration shakeup’ PM, ABC

News (online) 27 April 2001 http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s284439.htm 35

McKay et al Above n 23 36

Ibid 37

Katharine Betts, ‘Immigration and public opinion: understanding the shift’ (2002) 10(4) People and

Place 24–37

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s284439.htm

15

This paper is a study of language and rhetoric, so a categorisation of terms is

instructive. This paper seeks to examine the nature of discourse concerning asylum

seekers, within which language is used to control, contort or influence opinion.

Different terms – ‘asylum seeker’, ‘refugee’, ‘boat person’, ‘illegal immigrant’ – hold

significantly divergent meanings for different audiences, and can carry varied

connotations depending upon their context.38

Many terms are used, or consciously

avoided, as tools of political rhetoric, rather than as objective descriptors.

The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol

(hereafter the 1951 Convention) defines a refugee as: “any person who, owing to a

well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality,

membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of

his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail

himself/herself of the protection of that country”.39

The United Nations further

defines an asylum seeker as a person who claims to be a refugee, but whose claim has

not been definitively assessed.40

This dissertation will use the neutral term ‘asylum seeker’ to describe people arriving,

or attempting to arrive in Australian territory without a valid visa, by boat. The term

should be read to carry no judgement on: the legitimacy of these people’s actions in

attempting to come to Australia; the validity of their claim to asylum, or; the legality

or appropriateness of the Australian response to their actions. The term is used

neutrally, and has been chosen for clarity and concision alone.

38

Bridget Anderson and Scott Blinder, ‘Who counts as a migrant? Definitions and their consequences’

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford (Online briefing paper) 1 August 2014,

http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/who-counts-migrant-definitions-and-their-

consequences 39

Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, opened for signature 28 July 1951, 189 UNTS 150,

(entered into force 22 April 1954) art 1 40

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Asylum Seekers (2014) UNHCR

http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c137.html

16

3. From in-need to illegal: The evolution of government and media

asylum narratives in Australia

3.1: Historical Perspective

People move. Any history of humanity, however far back into the past that is taken, is

a history of migration. Since the earliest movement of Homo erectus out of Africa

across Eurasia, humankind has found reasons for, and ways to, move from one place

to another. Sometimes that movement is orderly, planned, and peaceful, but, as often,

it is a harried, desperate, and violent exodus of large numbers of people, fleeing

persecution, war, famine or other natural disaster. Throughout history, communities,

polities, and civilisations have been destroyed, supplanted, or enriched by inflows of

people from foreign cultures and alien ethnic groups.41

Lam Binh, of course, was not the first ‘boat person’ to arrive on Australia’s shores

unannounced. Australia’s history, if it is nothing else, is a history of people turning up

on boats. More than any other, arriving unannounced on a boat is the act that has

defined Australia, shaped the country’s character, and directed its development.

Australia is, fundamentally, a nation of boat people.

Indigenous Australians arrived, likely in multiple waves of migration, on the

continent in small boats from Africa via Asia, somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000

years ago.42

European explorers scouted Australia’s east and west coasts throughout

the 17th

Century, but it was not until the late 18th

– in 1788 – that a British colony was

settled.43

The new migrants brought agriculture, the English language, and industrial

technology, but they also carried powerful new weapons and disease. They brought

41

Alan Dupont, East Asia Imperilled, Transnational Challenges to Security (Cambridge University

Press, 2001) 135 42

Fran Dorey, Australian Museum, ‘The spread of people to Australia’ Australian Museum (online) 26

May 2011 http://australianmuseum.net.au/the-spread-of-people-to-australia 43

C.M.H. Clark, A History of Australia (Cambridge University Press: London, 1962): Government of

the Commonwealth of Australia, ‘European discovery and the colonisation of Australia’

Australia.gov.au (online) 31 March 2015 http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-

story/european-discovery-and-colonisation

17

with them concepts around private property, individual rights, and, eventually,

democracy and the rule of law.44

Arriving unannounced in Australia by boat has made, for better or for worse, the

nation of Australia. But no act is now more controversial, more contested, more

confronting, than turning up at Australia’s shoreline by sea. Since Lam’s fortuitous

arrival, the issue of boat-borne asylum seekers – their arrival, their rights, and

Australia’s response – has consistently been at the forefront of political and media

discourse.45

Since Lam Binh’s arrival in 1976, Australia has experienced four broad cohorts of

boat arrivals. The first, from 1976 to 1980, came mainly from Vietnam fleeing the

conflict in Indo-China.46

The second wave of asylum seekers arrived between 1989

and 1998, mainly from South China and Cambodia. Concern over their uncontrolled

influx led to the (then Labor) government establishing laws for the mandatory

detention of all asylum seekers who arrive in Australian territory by boat.47

The third wave – between 1999 and 2001 – saw asylum seekers from previously

minor source countries, in particular significant numbers of ethnic Hazara fleeing

Afghanistan, arrive in Australia. The government responded with the further

‘hardening’ of asylum policies, characterised by the introduction of temporary

protection visas, the Tampa affair, and the ‘Pacific Solution’ of forcibly moving

asylum seekers offshore for processing.48

The fourth wave, between 2009 and 2013,

saw, by far, the largest number of asylum seekers reach Australian shores – more than

51,000 over five years.49

Australian governments (one Labor, one conservative

44

Ibid 45

Janet Phillips, and Harriet Spinks, ‘Boat Arrivals in Australia since 1976’ (Research Paper,

Parliament of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services, Parliamentary Library, 23 July 2013) 6

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22library%2Fprspub%2

F5P1X6%22 46

Ibid 4 47

D. McMaster, ‘White Australia to Tampa: The politics of fear’ (2002) 21 Dialogue 3-9 48

Katharine Betts, ‘Boatpeople and public opinion in Australia’ (2001) 9(4) People and place 34:

Phillips and Spinks Above n 45 49

Janet Phillips, ‘Boat arrivals in Australia: a quick guide to the statistics’ (Research Paper, Parliament

of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services, Parliamentary Library, 23 January 2014)

http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/

rp1314/QG/BoatArrivals

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22library%2Fprspub%2F5P1X6%22


http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/QG/BoatArrivals


18

Coalition50

) responded, again, with more self-declared “hardline”51

measures,

including forcibly turning boats back to sea, sending asylum seekers back to

Indonesia in lifeboats, and re-opening the closed offshore detention centres on Manus

Island, Papua New Guinea, and Nauru. In 2014, only one boat, carrying 157 asylum

seekers from Sri Lanka, reached Australian territory. After attempts to send the

asylum seekers to India were rebuffed, the Australian government removed the

asylum seekers to Nauru.52

The progress of Australian asylum seeker policies has not been linear. In particular,

leading up to and after the 2007 election (the final years of the Coalition Howard

government and the first years of the subsequent Labor administration under Kevin

Rudd),53

especially contentious policies, such as temporary protection visas and

offshore processing, were abandoned for several years, before they were re-

introduced.

However, the dominant reaction of Australian governments to increases in asylum

seeker boat arrivals has been to “crack down” on the problem.54

In order to be able to

prosecute these “hardline”55

policies, governments have needed to justify the

measures, and portray them publicly as reasonable and required actions. This section

of this paper examines the development of Australian government rhetoric, and media

reportage of that language, over the course of four distinct, and critical, periods in

Australia’s asylum history. These periods correlate with the ‘peaks’ of these asylum

‘waves’ to reach Australia: 1976-1979, 1990-1992, 1999-2001, and 2012-2013.

50

Coalition refers to the long-standing Liberal-National party coalition, regarded as the right-wing or

‘conservative’ side of Australian politics 51

Jamie Smyth, ‘Australia’s “stop the boats” asylum policy divides opinion’, The Financial Times

(online) 6 November 2014 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/82225b4c-6563-11e4-91b1-

00144feabdc0.html#axzz3fOBo2WtP 52

Australian Broadcasting Corporation News, ‘157 Tamil asylum seekers sent from Curtin detention

centre to Nauru’ ABC News (online) 2 August 2014 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-02/tamil-

asylum-seekers-sent-to-nauru/5642972 53

Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia 2007-2010, June 2013-September 2013 54

Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, quoted in ‘Rudd, SBY, agree to tackle asylum seekers’ The

World Today, ABC News (online), 10 March 10 2010

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2841753.htm: Amanda Vanstone, immigration

minister of Australia, quoted in ‘‘Smuggling crackdown’ enables refugee boost’ Lateline, ABC News

(online) 26 March 2004 http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1074961.htm 55

Smyth Above n 51

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-02/tamil-asylum-seekers-sent-to-nauru/5642972


http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2841753.htm

19

3.2: The 1970s - ‘National soul-searching’

The arrival of Lam Binh and his compatriots – modern Australia’s first “boat people”

– was barely news at all, and certainly not an event worthy of a formal government

response. This first boat’s arrival was treated almost as an oddity. The Canberra

Times had the first report, carrying a nine-paragraph story on page 10 of its April 29,

1976 edition. The language of the headline was factual and dispassionate, “S.

Vietnamese refugees arrive in Darwin” and the article reported simply that a boat had

arrived from South Vietnam bearing “five men seeking political asylum”. A

spokesman for the immigration department was paraphrased as saying the men had

been granted one-month visas, while their case was considered by the minister.56

“We

wanted to leave South Vietnam because life under the Communists is not good,” Lam

Binh was free to tell reporters. “So I bought a fishing boat, I went fishing for about

nine months. After we had studied carefully all we could learn about the sea we saw a

way to make our escape.”57

More boats followed in the weeks and months, and the tone in reportage changed

from curiosity to emerging issue of concern. Who were these people? And why were

they being allowed to simply turn up and then stay? But the government’s attitude

towards asylum seekers remained benevolent, and its policies – as they were

explained to the public – grounded in a context of international legal obligation and

humanitarian imperative. “Australia would offer sanctuary” to the asylum seekers, the

Coalition government’s immigration minister Michael MacKellar58

said.59

He drew

public attention to their “harrowing experiences” in their homelands and during their

journeys to Australia, and he extolled the moral rightness of Australia’s acceptance of

boat-borne refugees, and the country’s international legal obligation to do so.60

56

‘S. Vietnamese refugees arrive in Darwin’, The Canberra Times (Canberra) 29 April 1976, 10 57

Ibid 58

Michael MacKellar, Australian immigration minister 1975-1979 (Liberal Party/Coalition

government) 59

Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 31 August 1976) 60

Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 20 December 1976)

20

The minister publicly stated the asylum seekers’ qualifications and occupations,61

an

endeavour which can be seen as an effort to ‘humanise’ otherwise unfamiliar people,

to highlight their similarities to Australians, and to demonstrate their usefulness to the

Australian people and economy. The minister also acted as a conduit for the asylum

seekers to speak directly to the Australian people, relaying their written messages

through the press. Of one boatload, the minister said: “No-one spoke English but a

message in block letters was handed to Customs officers on arrival. It summed up all

that needed to be said: ‘Please help us for freedom. We live in South Vietnam…

Please, Australia Government help us live in Australia. There are fifty-six persons on

board, eighteen mans, ten womans, fourteen boys, fourteen girls. There are ten

familys. We shall keep Australia law, will be goodman’ ”(sic).62

Ministers across portfolios presented the arrival of asylum seekers on Australian

shores as the result of calamitous events overseas and promoted Australia’s

humanitarian response as legally sound, and morally right. But the government was

also careful to portray the issue as one over which it had control – “the final decision

whether to accept refugees must remain with Australia”63

– and one it had the

resources, and will, to handle. “As a matter of humanity, and in accord with

international obligations freely entered into, Australia has accepted a responsibility to

contribute towards the solution of world refugee problems,” MacKellar told

parliament in May 1977.64

However, as more and more boats continued to arrive, government rhetoric began to

‘harden’, becoming significantly more oppositional towards asylum seekers.

MacKellar stated publicly “anyone who encourages people to set out in these small,

often unseaworthy boats, which are inadequately prepared and equipped for a long

and hazardous journey must understand the responsibility associated with their

actions.”65

He warned of deaths: “no-one knows for certain how many of these boats

have set out for Australia. Consequently no one knows how many, if any, have failed

61

This section draws on ideas originally discussed in Claire Higgins (2013) New evidence on the

development of Australian refugee policy, 1976 to 1983. DPhil, University of Oxford, 69-74 62

Ibid 63

Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 24 May 1977) 64

Ibid 65

For further analysis of this rhetoric see Higgins, above n 61:

Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 10 June 1977)

21

to survive the long voyage.”66

In September, the Minister was widely reported in the

national press when he said Australia’s intake of refugees needed to “balance the

claims of compassion and humanity with the needs of the workplace”67

and the next

month he said refugee status determinations would be tightened after

“misrepresentations” by asylum seekers as to their situations.68

The government, having dominated the flow of information around boat arrivals, and

the narrative around the nature of the issue, now found itself losing its control of the

story, and forced to respond to the media obtaining information from new sources. It

sought to counter an emerging narrative, sourced overseas, that even more boats were

already on their way to Australia, and that it was powerless to control the flow of

unauthorised people to its shores. In November 1977, the government was forced to

deny reports an “armada” of asylum seeker boats would imminently arrive in

Australia,69

as well as stories of “rich businessmen arriving posing as refugees” and of

organised “rackets to bring people to Australia in boats”.70

The government recognised the political potency of the asylum seeker issue,

particularly the consequence of a perception of government inability to control its

borders. In November 1977, foreign minister Andrew Peacock71

and MacKellar

issued a joint media statement counseling: “the issue of the acceptance of Vietnamese

refugees by Australia… might become an election issue. It must not be allowed to do

so:

…because the basic question of human suffering involved transcends partisan

advantage in an election context;

…because… Australia has particular responsibility to these people;

…because Australia’s status within the region would be seriously – and justifiably –

damaged if it were.

66

Ibid. Two Australian immigration officials were posted to Thailand in an attempt to stop boats

continuing south. Australia intended to process and resettle people from there. 67

Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 19 September 1977) 68

Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 11 October 1977) 69

‘ANOTHER BOAT ARRIVES MacKellar denies refugee ‘armada’ ’ The Canberra Times

(Canberra) 28 Nov 1977, 1 70

Ibid 71

Andrew Peacock, Australian foreign minister 1975-1980 (Liberal Party/Coalition government)

22

“This government will not indiscriminately ‘make examples’ of boat refugees by

turning some of them back. Our controls are designed to prevent the entry of people

falsely posing as refugees, but we will not risk taking action against genuine refugees

just to get a message across. That would be an utterly inhuman course of action.”72

Guy Goodwin-Gill, then the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’

representative in Australia, wrote to Geneva in his 1977 Report that Australia had

undergone “extensive national soul-searching” on the issue of asylum seekers and

refugees, but that the government fundamentally took “a benign interest” towards

them.73

However, Goodwin-Gill noted a public disquiet, and a disconnect between the

government and popular positions. The government’s policies, he wrote, were “all the

more admirable in view of loud opposition to refugee acceptance voiced in the media

by some conservative as well as liberal sections of public opinion... particularly

apparent in August/September/October when a large number of refugee boats landed

on the shores of Australia thus raising questions of inadequate defences, fears of

epidemic and of invasion by cheap labour, as well as a panic reaction to what some

rumour-mongers term ‘the peaceful invasion’.”74

Almost every cabinet meeting, ministerial statement and letters to the editor page

carried some mention of the asylum seeker issue in 1978.75

The government

attempted to shift the debate onto its preferred themes of humanitarian intervention

and international legal obligation. “Press, radio and television were fed numerous

press releases, editorial materials, interviews, films and other visual aids to dramatise

the refugee situation in South East Asia and the Pacific and create a groundswell of

public opinion favourable to the Australian initiative [of accepting refugees].”76

But

the media largely ignored this, choosing instead to reflect the more sensationalist

public sentiment, Goodwin-Gill reported. Despite government efforts to quell disquiet

and opposition to the policy, he observed “most media representatives in Australia…

72

Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 29 November 1977) 73

Guy Goodwin-Gill, University of Oxford, Bodleian Social Science Library, Refugee Studies Centre

Collection, Guy Goodwin-Gill Collection, ‘Report for 1977’, End of year report from UNHCR Sydney

Branch to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 74

Ibid 75

Guy Goodwin-Gill University of Oxford, Bodleian Social Science Library, Refugee Studies Centre

Collection, Guy Goodwin-Gill Collection, ‘Report for 1978’, End of year report from UNHCR Sydney

Branch to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 76

Ibid

23

tried subtly, or not so subtly, to emphasise the ‘non-refugee’ character of the latest

wave of Vietnamese escapees.”77

Here can be seen the power of the ‘narrative not

chosen’: that those rhetorical constructions not accepted by the media (in this case one

emphasising the humanitarian nature of the asylum issue) also have an influence on

shaping the nature of public discourse, as much as those constructions widely

accepted and reported (e.g. new arrivals as ‘non-refugees’).

As Goodwin-Gill’s observations attest, the latter half of the 1970s was a seminal

period in the evolution of the asylum narrative in Australia, and, it can be argued, the

beginning of the change from a rhetorical construction grounded in response to a

humanitarian crisis and international legal obligation, to one of deterrence, threat, and

illegality. Critically, it must be seen that the media, not the government, was the

dominant agent in creating and establishing this narrative in public discourse. As will

be discussed in greater detail later, this narrative appeared to reflect, and even

amplify, an existing community concern over boat arrivals.

The media became the platform through which the disconnect between the

government and its electorate was made most apparent. Ministerial insistence that the

government’s policies were humane and moral – and, in addition, required under

international law – competed with the popular narrative of Australia being threatened

by boat arrivals. An illustrative, albeit singular, example was in August 1979, when

immigration minister MacKellar was a guest on Sydney talkback radio station 2UE

following a one-hour investigative report on the situation of Indo-Chinese refugees.

Of the 16 callers to the program – eight men and eight women – only four favored

Australia accepting any refugees at all. One exchange, in particular, made starkly

apparent MacKellar’s frustration with the audience (his voting public):

Caller: “What has happened to the White Australian Policy?”

MacKellar: “We haven’t got one.”

Caller: “We have not got one unfortunately. It is a communist plot to have these

people infiltrate us.”

77

Ibid

24

MacKellar: “Have you been listening for the past hour? There are hundreds of

thousands of people leaving, risking their lives to get out of countries which are

administered by communist governments.”78

Other callers accused refugees of “being threats to the Australian economy, stealing

jobs from Australian workers” and of “multiplying”.

“I am one of the vast majority of Australians who disagree with the immigration

program that you have with the refugees. The Australian taxpayer should not have to

pay for the resettlement of these people.”79

MacKellar, perhaps undiplomatically, said the radio station’s audience had “failed to

grasp the real problem of the refugee crisis”. The minister’s comments were

prominently reported in other media.80

But divergence from popular opinion by democratically-elected governments is an

unsustainable political position. Popular concern over an “invasion”, over the

introduction of disease,81

of economic imposition and a sense of unfairness were not

assuaged by the government’s assurances. With each arriving boat – 59 vessels

carrying 2029 people had reached Australian territory by the end of 197982

–

community concern grew louder, and the government responded by taking a ‘harder’

line in oppositional rhetoric towards asylum seekers.83

“The new situation has all the

ingredients for one of the most controversial and divisive issues in Australia’s

history,” a confidential submission to cabinet said. “A hostile public reaction,

stimulated by traditional fears of the ‘yellow peril’ and by concern about present high

levels of unemployment, could not only jeopardise Government attempts to resolve

the refugee problem but could also cause a head-on collision between domestic public

opinion and Australia’s foreign policy interests... the most effective way that

Australia can protect and serve its national interest is to shift the emphasis of its

policy from resettlement to staunching the flow.”84

78

‘MacKellar defends refugee policies’, The Canberra Times (Canberra) 24 September 1979 1 79

Ibid 80

Ibid 81

Robert Manne, Left, Right, Left: Political Essays 1977-2005 (Black Ink, 2004) 383 82


Commonwealth of Australia, The 1979 Cabinet Records (National Archives of Australia, 1979)

available from http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/byyear/cabinet-records-1979.aspx 84

Ibid

25

Driven by this populist policy demand, it is here that the first indications of a change

in rhetoric around asylum seekers and refugees are apparent in Australian government

discourse. By the end of 1979, ministerial language had shifted significantly. When

another boatload of 50 Vietnamese arrived in Broome in November of that year,

MacKellar condemned the arrival: “it is unfair to those in refugee camps who are

prepared to wait for orderly processing.”85

86

The change in rhetoric to a more

hardline response was the obvious and safe political option, but also, it can be argued,

the craven one. Neumann describes it as a “capitulation to vox populi”.87

Here lie the

origins of the adverse rhetoric used against asylum seekers in contemporary Australia:

not in a narrative driven by government for its own policy purposes, but in a rhetoric

of defence, created by a government in response to a rising public opposition.

The Coalition government, under Malcolm Fraser,88

was, ultimately, a significant

participant in the Orderly Departure Program (1979-1997),89

and later the

Comprehensive Plan of Action (1989-1997), which, together, resettled more than 2.5

million Indochinese refugees across the world over a quarter of a century.90

The

fundamental premise of the programs was to reach asylum seekers in their home

countries or countries of first refuge (usually close by in Southeast Asia) and, after

identity and medical checks, arrange ordered resettlement by plane to a third country,

such as Australia, Canada, the UK and the US (which resettled, by far, the most

refugees). Australia resettled 185,700 Indochinese refugees between 1975 and 1997,

the fifth largest resettlement country.91

85

‘50 Vietnamese boat people arrive in WA’ The Canberra Times (Canberra), 11 November 1979, 3 86

It is perhaps noteworthy the almost identical headlines in the November 1979 story and the April

1976 article about the first boat arrival. The differing only by place of arrival, and the word used to

describe those on board: 1976: ‘S. Vietnamese refugees arrive in Darwin’, 1979: ’50 Vietnamese boat

people arrive in WA’. The asylum seekers are no longer refugees, they are boat people. 87

Neumann, Klaus, ‘“Queue Jumpers” and the perils of crossing Sydney Harbour on a Manly ferry’,

Inside Story (online) 2 October 2014 http://insidestory.org.au/queue-jumpers-and-the-perils-of-

crossing-sydney-harbour-on-a-manly-ferry 88

Malcolm Fraser, Australian Prime Minister 1975-1983 (Liberal Party/Coalition government) 89

Australia, which accepted 60,285 refugees, was the third largest resettler under the ODP, behind

Canada (46,711) and the US (458,367) Source: W. Courtland Robinson, Terms of Refuge, (London:

Zed Books, 1998) Appendix 2 90

W. Courtland Robinson, Terms of Refuge, (London: Zed Books, 1998) 270-276, Appendix 2 91

Ibid

http://insidestory.org.au/queue-jumpers-and-the-perils-of-crossing-sydney-harbour-on-a-manly-ferry


26

Within Australia, the programs were well-supported92

and viewed as an expression of

Australia’s humanitarian credentials and adherence to its international legal

obligations.93

Perhaps as importantly, they were also seen as restoring order to a

disordered situation that had previously appeared beyond the government’s control.

The Australian voting public was more comfortable with the migration of Indochinese

refugees, because it was occurring with the government’s imprimatur and oversight:

nobody was simply turning up unannounced on a boat.

Ian Macphee,94

who succeeded MacKellar as the Coalition’s immigration minister in

December 1979,95

argues that the creation of an orderly resettlement scheme – a

migration path that the government was seen to be in control of – as well as bipartisan

political support, meant the refugees’ arrival was broadly accepted by the Australian

polity and public. “I addressed the opposition backbench committee as well as our

party room and Mick Young [the Labor Party’s immigration spokesman] and I

travelled with John Menadue [Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic

Affairs] to all major cities and towns and explained the policy. It was all humane and

in accordance with Aussie values such as a ‘fair go’. Bipartisanship was crucial to

public acceptance of our policy.”96

Macphee says the language around resettled

refugees was carefully constructed to be neutral. “Our work with our neighbours and

the UNHCR was so easy and co-operative about the time I was minister that language

was not an issue diplomatically. Because it was bipartisan, we only referred to

‘asylum seekers’ and ‘refugees’. I do not recall any problems with the media,

although occasionally a prominent person might criticise us.”97

With the creation of regional agreements to resettle refugees from southeast Asia, the

flow of boats to Australia ceased in the early 1980s, the rhetoric became more

neutral,98

and the political sensitivity subsided.99

But Marr argues the semantic tone

had been set: when boats re-emerged on the horizon at the end of the decade, so to

92

Interview with Ian Macphee, former minister for immigration (1979-1982) (By email, April 8, 2015) 93

Jeff Crisp, ‘Australia and Europe, Failing the world’s refugees’ Asylum Insight (online) 5 June 2015

http://www.asyluminsight.com/jeff-crisp#.VXFm32Sqqkp 94

Ian Macphee, Australian immigration minister 1979-1982 (Liberal Party/Coalition government) 95

The Coalition government led by Malcolm Fraser remained in power until 1983 96

Interview with Ian Macphee, former minister for immigration (1979-1982) (By email, April 8, 2015) 97

Ibid 98

Ibid 99

Philips Above n 49

http://www.asyluminsight.com/jeff-crisp#.VXFm32Sqqkp

27

would the hostile rhetoric of the decade before. “The language of ‘queue jumpers’ and

‘illegals’… ‘coming in by the backdoor’ was fashioned in the late 1970s,” Marr

writes. “Instead of attempting to reconcile Australia to this novel but hardly unusual

development, both sides of politics reinforced the vague but profound sense that for

refugees to turn up in this way was a violation of the true order of things. It was by far

the easier political path to take… so these first boat people were abused as

interlopers.”100

3.3: The early 90s - Illegals

In 1980, changing geopolitical factors and the success of the Organised Departure

Program saw the boats stop appearing on Australia’s horizon, and public concern

faded with them. But at the end of that decade, with Cambodia’s peace plan faltering,

and civil unrest in China, new boats, carrying new people, suddenly appeared, and the

deep-seated fears of the Australian public and polity returned. In early 1990, Labor

MP Gerry Hand101

stood in the betting ring at Melbourne’s Moonee Valley

racecourse. Only a handful of boats had reached Australian shores by that time, and

Hand had been immigration minister less than a week. “Between the second and third

race some bloke got into me, physically, about the boat people,” Hand recalled later.

The man suggested sending the boats back to sea, and bombing them.102

“I get tackled

in supermarkets and on the beach. But a lot of the reaction is kneejerk… after talking

it through, I even put doubts in the mind of a bloke who wanted to zap them half way

to Indonesia.”103

The return of the boats, and its accompanying public concern, was met with sterner

government action, enabled by aggressive rhetoric. When 220 Cambodians arrived by

boat in July 1990, Prime Minister Bob Hawke104

told the asylum seekers – and the

Australian voting public – that they were not welcome. Those arriving by boat now

100

David Marr, Panic (Black Inc, 2nd

ed, 2013) 228 101

Gerry Hand, Australian immigration minister 1990-1993 (Labor Party) 102

Margo Kingston, ‘Politics and Public Opinion’ in Mary Crock (ed), Protection or Punishment: The

detention of asylum seekers in Australia (Federation Press: Sydney, 1993) 8 103

Ibid 11 104

Bob Hawke, Australian Prime Minister 1983-1992 (Labor Party)

28

were “economic migrants”, the government said,105

not genuine refugees, and they

were subverting Australia’s inherent authority, as a sovereign nation, to control who

came to its borders. “Do not let any people… think that all they’ve got to do is break

the rules, jump the queue, lob here, and Bob’s your uncle. Bob is not your uncle on

this issue. We’re not going to allow people just to jump the queue.”106

The language is typically Hawke-ian: colloquial, but carefully constructed, and

layered with meanings. By casting the latest boat arrivals as “economic migrants”

even before their claims to refugee status had been assessed, the Prime Minister had

condemned them all as illegitimate and undeserving, seeking to exploit Australia’s

generosity and its legal system. Matthew describes this government language as

“blurring legal boundaries for political gain”.107

Hawke also insisted the boat arrivals

had sought to “break the rules”, implying, at best, a blatant disregard for correct

customary behaviour and for the Australian sense of ‘a fair go’, at worst, a criminality

to their actions. It was, and is, not illegal to enter Australia without a visa in order to

seek asylum.108

109

Even Hawke’s phrase “any people”, seeks to cast the asylum

seekers as “other”, as a “deviant population” and a “problem”.110

Whereas the very

first Australian government response to boat arrivals sought to highlight the

similarities, and the common ground, between the asylum seekers and the Australian

people, the government rhetoric of the early ‘90s emphasised the differences. Through

focusing on divergence – from accepted ‘rules’ about coming to Australia, and from

the Australian mainstream (for whom, presumably, Bob is an uncle) – government

rhetoric sought to drive the two communities apart.

It is at this time that the dichotomous narrative of the ‘good’ refugee and the ‘bad’

first emerges strongly in Australian government rhetoric. In June 1989, Hawke was

105

Mary Crock, Ben Saul and Azadeh Dastyari, Future Seekers II: Refugees and Irregular Migration

in Australia (Federation Press, 2006) 36 106

Paul Kelly, The March of Patriots: The Struggle for Modern Australia (Melbourne University

Publishing, 2011) 187 107

Penelope Matthew, Reworking the relationship between asylum and employment (Routledge, 2012)

10 108

Andreas Schloenhardt, quoted in Factcheck (online), ABC News, 24 January 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-24/tony-abbott-incorrect-on-asylum-seekers-breaking-australian-

law/5214802 109

Phillips Above n 33 110

For further exploration of this construction of asylum seekers, see: Sharon Pickering ‘Common

Sense and Original Deviancy: News Discourses and Asylum Seekers in Australia’ (2001) 14(2)

Journal of Refugee Studies 169

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-24/tony-abbott-incorrect-on-asylum-seekers-breaking-australian-law/5214802


29

moved to tears in saying he would accept as refugees any Chinese students already in

Australia who feared returning home after the Tiananmen Square massacre.111

But he

rejected a Cambodian cohort who had arrived by boat a few months later as

undeserving of assistance, even before their claims had been assessed112

(his position

was not based on the numbers of either group, there were more than 20,000 Chinese

students in Australia at the time, and fewer than 400 Cambodians had arrived by

boat).113

The public labeling of boat-borne asylum seekers by the government as “illegals” also

emerged during the early 90s. Previously, “illegal immigrant” had been used to

describe people who had legitimately come to Australia but then overstayed their visa

(still a by-factors larger group numerically).114

But it came to be applied, including by

the minister, to those who had arrived in Australia by boat without documents. Gerry

Hand told ABC television he had been “a bit soft” and “made a mistake” in believing

asylum seekers arriving by boat were genuine. “There is no more of that. Those who

arrive in this illegal way will be brought up [assessed].” He said applicants would

either be accepted as refugees “or we deport them”. The government promoted the

narrative that the boat arrivals had no claim to refugee status and were exploiting

Australia and Australians. “I hate rorts115

and if someone is rorting the system we

have got to stop it,”116

Hand said. Instant deportations were threatened, and carried

out. “If you rort the system, you get the flick… If you enter illegally, you go straight

away: I mean, there is no mucking around.”117

This rhetorical shift proved crucial to government policy plans. The alleged illegality

of boat arrivals gave the Australian government the impetus, indeed the imperative, to

111

Ali Al’Amin Mazrui, Cultural Forces in World Politics (James Currey, 1990) 175 112

Robert Manne, ‘Australia’s Shipwrecked Refugee Policy: tragedy of errors’ The Monthly (online)

March 2013 https://www.themonthly.com.au/australia-s-shipwrecked-refugee-policy-tragedy-errors-

guest-7637 113

Crock, Mary, quoted in ‘Humane or Tough: a response to asylum seeker arrivals in Australia’ Rear

Vision, ABC Radio National, 20 October 2010

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/humane-or-tough-a-response-to-asylum-

seeker/2960064 114

‘Hand warns “illegals” to go home’ The Canberra Times (Canberra) 26 February 1991 14 115

Previously unbeknownst to the author, ‘rort’ is a peculiarly antipodean nomenclature. To ‘rort’ is to

‘engage in a fraudulent or dishonest act’. 116

Gerry Hand, quoted in ABC TV 7:30 Report 12 February 1992 117

Gerry Hand, quoted in Mike Taylor, ‘Boat people not refugees: Hand’ The Canberra Times 11

November 1992 5

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/humane-or-tough-a-response-to-asylum-seeker/2960064


30

act to deter others from coming the same way. The government chose to enforce

mandatory detention on all boat-borne asylum seekers. Legislation was passed, with

bipartisan support, in May 1992 mandating that all boat-borne asylum seekers,

without exception, were to be held in detention until their claims were determined.118

The policy was controversial, particularly with human rights lawyers, who argued the

policy was illegal, because it breached Australia’s international legal obligations, and

a “draconian measure” enforced by the government “hurriedly to get itself out of

trouble without thinking the consequences through”.119

120

The policy was

intermittently problematic for the government – particularly when it emerged some

people were held for nearly a year before they could speak with a lawyer121

while

others were incarcerated for four years before they were determined to be refugees

and released122

– but fundamentally mandatory detention enjoyed broad popular

support. The policy was only ever intended to be temporary, “designed to address

only the pressing requirements of the current situation”,123

but once in place,

governments were reluctant to eschew a useful prerogative, and, rather than being

wound back, the mandatory detention regime was expanded. The initial 273-day time-

limit on detention was abandoned in 1994,124

and the regime is now regarded as an

integral element of Australia’s immigration system.

118

Janet Phillips and Harriet Spinks ‘Immigration detention in Australia’ (Research Paper, Parliament

of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services, Parliamentary Library, 20 March 2013) 1

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/1311498/upload_binary/1311498.pdf;fileT

ype=application%2Fpdf#search=%22library/prspub/1311498%22 119

‘Refugees detention illegal: lawyers’ The Canberra Times (Canberra) 15 April 1992 5 120

Margaret Piper, ‘Lack of charity in our treatment of refugees’ The Canberra Times (Canberra) 11

November 1992 13 121

Nick Poynder, ‘A (Name Deleted) v Australia: A Milestone For Asylum Seekers’ [1997]

AUJlHRights 21, (1997) 4(1) Australian Journal of Human Rights 155

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AJHR/1997/21.html 122

Margo Kingston, ‘Immigration switch on boat people’ The Canberra Times (Canberra) 22 January

1994 2 123

Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 5 May 1992, 2370 (Gerry

Hand)

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=customrank;page=0;q

uery=designed%20to%20address%20only%20the%20pressing%20requirements%20of%20the%20curr

ent%20situation%20Date%3A01%2F01%2F1992%20%3E%3E%2005%2F05%2F1993%20Dataset%

3Ahansardr,hansardr80;rec=1;resCount=Default 124

Adele Garnier and Adrian Cox, ‘Twenty years of mandatory detention: the anatomy of a failed

policy’ (Paper presented at Australian Political Studies Australian Conference, Hobart, September

2012)

http://www.auspsa.org.au/sites/default/files/twenty_years_of_mandatory_detention_adele_garnier_and

_lloyd_cox.pdf

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=customrank;page=0;query=designed%20to%20address%20only%20the%20pressing%20requirements%20of%20the%20current%20situation%20Date%3A01%2F01%2F1992%20%3E%3E%2005%2F05%2F1993%20Datas




31

Publicly, minister Hand framed the issue as one of a sovereign government defending

its fundamental rights: “the issue of detaining people who arrive on our shores

without entry rights is an important element of the Government’s capacity to control

our borders.”125

Privately, the debate was more vituperative. Labor minister Neal

Blewett recorded in his diaries that while the proposed legislation – opposed by some

in government as essentially indefinite detention without charge – was controversial

within cabinet, the minister was able to garner sufficient support. “Hand supported his

proposals with his usual blend of vivid anecdotes about the wickedness of the boat

people, their sinister manipulators (Chinese tongs this time) and attacks on the self-

righteous attitudes of churches and the do-gooders.”126

Chris Evans,127

elected into parliament in 1993, and who would become immigration

minister a decade-and-a-half later in 2007, saw the trend towards a more oppositional

language from the early 90s. “There’s no doubt it [language around asylum seekers]

has gotten harder and more pejorative over time, and there were elements of that in

the Hawke-Keating128

years. Putting the Chinese Tiananmen Square issue to one side,

they took a fairly hard line on that issue… and certainly, the language became quite

critical, and it was very pejorative.”129

Arja Keski-Nummi, an officer in the immigration department for 32 years from 1979

and First Assistant Secretary of the Refugee, Humanitarian and International Division

between 2007 and 2010, argues the construction of the ‘illegal’ asylum seeker

arriving by boat became an established narrative in the early 90s. “The whole rhetoric

around asylum seekers, going back to Gerry Hand, is that there is a right way and a

wrong way, and somehow getting on a boat is the wrong way.”130

Keski-Nummi

argues government rhetoric has been hugely influential in establishing a justification,

and winning public support, for policies: “Most people have absolutely no idea about

the actual situation, and most people want to believe and trust their governments, so if

governments say that these people are doing the wrong thing, then they must be. This

125

Canberra Times Above n 114 126

Marr Above n 100 229 127

Chris Evans, Australian immigration minister 2007-2010 128

Paul Keating, Prime Minister of Australia 1992-1996 (Labor Party) 129

Interview with Chris Evans (By Skype 16 June 2015) 130

Interview with Arja Keski-Nummi (By Skype, 25 May 2015)

32

is the whole foundation of the public accepting mandatory detention: that these people

must be doing something wrong if the government feels they have to detain them.”131

As Keski-Nummi argues, the semantic construction of the argument was crucial to the

government achieving its policy outcome. The government’s rhetorical insistence that

asylum seekers who arrived by boat were acting illegally – at the very least, behaving

wrongly – enabled it to justify policies condemned by human rights lawyers and

refugee advocates as illegal and draconian.132

Implied by, and in alliance to, this

argument was the government’s converse position: that the government was acting to

uphold the law and due process, to protect its sovereign mandate, and to defend the

nation from possibly malign external influence. Australia remains the only country

that mandatorily detains all boat arrivals, including children.133

The government’s rhetoric on asylum seekers was widely reported, and the terms of

the government’s language reproduced, in the media. The government’s actions were

largely framed in positive terms, with headlines such as “Minister gets tough on boat

people”134

, “Crackdown on boat people, illegal entry”135

and “Illegals start Port

Headland hunger strike”136

. While the government’s narrative was the dominant

construction, the media did not act as a singular, monolithic entity, and there were

explicit efforts to counter the government position. “Terms like ‘rorters’ and queue-

jumpers’ are used frequently in ministerial and departmental communiqués on asylum

seekers,” Margaret Piper from the Refugee Council of Australia wrote in The

Canberra Times.137

The use of such emotive language does not foster community

understanding of the issues or engender sympathy for people who

have been traumatised and tortured at home; it fuels community

131

Ibid 132

Canberra Times Above n 114 133

J. Menadue, A. Keski-Nummi and K. Gauthier ‘A new approach–breaking the stalemate on asylum

seekers and refugees’ (2011) Occasional paper 13 Centre for Policy Development 31

http://cpd.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/cpd_refugee_report_2nd-run-WEB-VERSION3.pdf 134

‘Minister gets tough on boat people’ The Age (Melbourne), 21 January 1992 1 135

‘Crackdown on boat people, illegal entry’, The Canberra Times (Canberra), 13 February 1992 2 136

‘Illegals start Port Headland hunger strike’, The Canberra Times (Canberra), 10 March 1992 2 137

Margaret Piper, ‘Lack of charity in our treatment of refugees’ The Canberra Times (Canberra) 11

November 1992 13

http://cpd.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/cpd_refugee_report_2nd-run-WEB-VERSION3.pdf

33

prejudice and xenophobia and legitimises the racist attitudes of

some talk-back radio hosts and others. There is mistrust already of

the motives of refugees: this doesn’t help. Despite frequent use of

the word ‘rort’ in ministerial pronouncements, the Government has

never given information on the proportion of abusive claims.

Increasingly, a whole range of clichés is emerging in official

Australian immigration rhetoric, which on closer examination is

found to be based on spurious logic. The worry is that these myths

have been repeated so often that not only do they appear to be

believed but they also are being used as the foundation for the

formulation of policy.138

Mary Crock argues the language used around asylum seekers arriving by boat in the

early 1990s was crucial in framing Australia’s public debate on the issue, and enabled

the introduction of new, punitive policies. “It was the beginning of the politicisation

of boat people and refugees. It was hugely damaging.”139

“The Labor government’s

response to the Cambodian and Chinese boat people of the early 1990s set the course

for the policies and institutional hostilities that continue to this day.”140

It must be seen here that the campaign over the language of and labels for asylum

seekers was not a secondary consideration to the policies themselves. The

government’s rhetorical insistence that boat-borne asylum seekers had arrived

improperly and were “illegal” was not an additional element to smooth the passage of

potentially controversial policy. Rather, the rhetorical campaign was a fundamental

keystone to the policy outcomes being achieved. Asylum seekers were no longer

“refugees”, but “illegals” and “rorters”. This construction did not simply allow the

government to act against those people, it compelled it to do so.

138

Ibid 139

Mary Crock, quoted in ‘Humane or Tough: a response to asylum seeker arrivals in Australia’ Rear

Vision, ABC Radio National, 20 October 2010

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/humane-or-tough-a-response-to-asylum-

seeker/2960064 140

Mary Crock, ‘Judging refugees: the clash of power and institutions in the development of Australian

refugee law’ (2004) 26(1) Sydney Law Review 58



34

3.4: 2001 - Asylum as Terror

The black letters of Prime Minister John Howard’s141

words at the Liberal Party

campaign launch for the 2001 election campaign were unremarkable: “we will decide

who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”.142

The

message those words carried however, resonated far beyond any strict interpretation.

Taken literally, Howard’s comments were no deviation from generations of

government policy, and a reflection of a fundamental tenet of the Westphalian

concept of state sovereignty.143

But the words were as much a piece of political

rhetoric as they were a statement of policy. Supporters saw the statement as a firm

defence of Australia’s right as a sovereign nation to control its borders: critics accused

the Prime Minister of “dog-whistling” on immigration, appealing to base, xenophobic

fears of unauthorised arrivals.144

The sentence became the defining statement of the

election campaign of 2001, when Mares argues, “the demonisation of refugees and

asylum seekers for political gain may have reached its apotheosis”.145

The number of boat arrivals to Australia had been building since 1999, when people

(mainly young men) fleeing oppressive regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran began

arriving off Australia’s western coast.146

Boat arrival numbers had been consistent at a

few hundred a year for a decade until 1999, when a sudden surge which saw more

than 12,000 (at a rate of more than 4000 a year) arrive between 1999 and 2001.147

The

government responded, again with more stringent, and then radical, such as temporary

protection, legislation, but crucially, it reacted first with greater rhetorical escalation.

As Marr argues:

141

John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia 1996-2007 (Liberal Party/Coalition Government) 142

John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, ‘Address at the Federal Liberal Party campaign launch’,

(Speech delivered at Liberal Party campaign launch, Sydney, 29 October 2001)

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query%3DId%3A%22library%2Fpartyp

ol%2F1178395%22 143

Janine Leatherman, Discipline and Punishment in Global Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, London,

2008) 115 144

Diana Bosso, ‘The whistle we all heard: conceptualization of the ‘dog-whistle’ in politics and

journalism’, (Research Paper for the Annual Conference of the Cultural Studies Association of

Australia, 8 December 2007) 1 145

Mares, Peter ‘Reporting Australia’s asylum seeker ‘crisis’ (Paper presented at Media, Terrorism,

and a Culture of Peace, 5 July 2002) http://apo.org.au/commentary/reporting-australias-asylum-seeker-

crisis 146


Ibid

35

First [Howard] ramped up the language. To the old vocabulary he

added a term plucked from the world of tariff reform. ‘Border

protection’ powerfully fused race fear with anxiety about the

nation’s security. Howard didn’t invent the link between race and

invasion: this is what focus groups, particularly on the fringes of big

cities, were telling his people. Howard’s genius was to find the

language to accuse disorganised, exhausted people arriving in dribs

and drabs at islands far out in the Indian Ocean of being a threat to

the security of a heavily defended modern nation.148

Legislation to give the navy more powers to stop and search asylum seeker boats was

called the Border Protection Legislation Amendment Bill 1999.149

150

The language –

and with it the concept – of asylum seeker boats as an issue of ‘border protection’

remains fixed in Australian law and discourse. Several more ‘border protection’ bills

and amendments followed, and in 2013, the name of the government department

responsible for processing asylum claims was changed from the Department of

Immigration and Citizenship to the Department of Immigration and Border

Protection.151

Four events helped catalyse asylum seekers as a crucial issue of government and

media discourse in the second half of 2001: the Tampa affair, the September 11 terror

attacks in the US, the Children Overboard incident, and Australia’s general election in

November.

On 24 August 2001, a Norwegian freight ship, the MV Tampa, rescued 438 asylum

seekers, predominantly ethnic Hazara from Afghanistan, from their stricken fishing

vessel, the Palapa 1, which was in distress in international waters north of Christmas

Island.152

The Howard government refused the Tampa permission to enter Australian

148

Marr, Above n 100 149

Border Protection Legislation Amendment Bill 1999 (Commonwealth of Australia)

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2004B00546 150

The government also passed the Temporary Protection Visa Bill in 1999. 151

Australian Government, ‘What’s in a name?’, Department of Immigration and Border Protection

(online) 13 February 2015 https://www.immi.gov.au/about/anniversary/whats-in-a-name.htm 152

David-Marr and Marian.Wilkinson, Dark Victory (Allen and Unwin, 2003) 12

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2004B00546

https://www.immi.gov.au/about/anniversary/whats-in-a-name.htm

36

territory, sparking a diplomatic dispute with Norway and a political controversy at

home. After protracted debate, the asylum seekers were taken by the Australian Navy

to Nauru, where their claims for protection were assessed. Some were ultimately

resettled in Australia and New Zealand, others returned to Afghanistan. The detention

of the Tampa asylum seekers on Nauru became known as the ‘Pacific Solution’, and

emerged as the genesis of successive governments’ policies of offshore processing

and resettlement in third countries.153

The terror attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 altered political

discourses across the world,154

and Australia’s debate over asylum seekers was almost

immediately transformed. Within 48 hours of the 9/11 attacks, and in an environment

of suddenly- and dramatically-heightened concern over international terrorism,

defence minister Peter Reith155

drew an explicit link between asylum seekers and

terrorism. He warned the unauthorised arrival of boats “can be a pipeline for terrorists

to come in and use your country as a staging post for terrorist activities”.156

Parliamentary secretary Peter Slipper157

similarly claimed, “there is an undeniable

linkage between illegals and terrorists”.158

And the Prime Minister, John Howard,

three days before a general election, cautioned: “Australia had no way to be certain

terrorists, or people with terrorist links, were not among the asylum seekers trying to

enter the country by boat from Indonesia.”159

The Prime Minister’s language was

more precise than his colleagues – in particular the use of qualifying clauses “no way

to be certain…”, “…or people with terrorist links” – but its effect was identical to that

of Reith and Slipper: the conflation of asylum seekers with the newly-emergent

terrorist threat.160

153

Ibid 15 154

Paul J.J. Payack, ‘How 9/11 changed the way we talk’ Global Language Monitor (online) 2014

http://www.languagemonitor.com/911/how-911-changed-the-way-we-talk/ 155

Peter Reith, Australian defence minister 2001 (Liberal Party, Coalition government) 156

Editorial, ‘Pain of one world’ The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) 14 September 2001 10 157

Peter Slipper, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for Finance and Administration 1998-2004

(Liberal Party/Coalition Government) 158

Gerard Henderson, ‘Terrorists don’t come via detention centres’ The Age (online) 19 November

2002 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/18/1037599359073.html 159

Dennis Atkins, ‘PM links terror to asylum seekers’, The Courier Mail (Brisbane), 7 November 2001

1 160

Mares, Above n 145

http://www.languagemonitor.com/911/how-911-changed-the-way-we-talk/

37

The head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, and the Prime

Minister’s most senior security adviser, Dennis Richardson, later described the risk of

terrorists coming to Australia by sea as “extremely remote”.161

He said he had “not

seen evidence” terrorists were trying to enter Australia by boat and asked: “Why

would people use the asylum seeker stream when they know they will be subject

to mandatory detention? They don’t know if they will be allowed entry and may

be thrown out.”162

Regardless, the construction of asylum seekers being a potential

terrorist threat was widely reported across Australian media.163

The third event to dramatically shape discourse around asylum seekers occurred on

October 7, when immigration minister Phillip Ruddock164

announced that a group of

asylum seekers, whose boat had been intercepted by a Navy vessel,165

had thrown

their children overboard from their boat into the sea in a “planned and premeditated”

attempt to force the Navy to take them to Australia.166

Defence minister Peter Reith

released photographs of children in the sea wearing life-jackets, asserting the pictures

were evidence the government’s stated version of events was “absolute fact”.167

Prime

Minister Howard argued on radio (and his quotes widely reported in major

newspapers): “I express my anger at the behaviour of those people and I repeat it: I

can’t comprehend how genuine refugees would throw their children overboard…. I

certainly don’t want people of that type in Australia, I really don’t”.168

It was found by a subsequent parliamentary inquiry that the version of events

presented by the government was untrue: that no children were thrown into the water

in the incident; that the pictures presented were taken a day after the alleged incident

161

David Marr, ‘ASIO’s indefinite detention beyond reason or doubt’, The Saturday Paper (online), 23

August 2014 http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2014/08/23/asios-indefinite-detention-

beyond-reason-or-doubt/1408716000#.VVS1HNqqqko 162

Henderson Above n 158 163

Tom Allard, ‘Cooking up Howard’s knockout punch’ The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) 16

November 2001 9 164

Phillip Ruddock, Australian immigration minister 1996-2003 (Liberal Party/Coalition government)

Neither Mr Ruddock, nor his office, responded to requests for interview for this paper. 165

Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident, Parliament of Australia, Report of the

Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident (2002)

https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/maritime_incident_ctte/report/report.pdf 166

Natalie O’Brien, ‘Overboard incident ‘never happened’, The Australian (Australia) 7 November

2001 1 167

Ibid 168

David Marr and Marian Wilkinson, ‘Going Overboard’, The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) 10

November 2001 27

http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2014/08/23/asios-indefinite-detention-beyond-reason-or-doubt/1408716000#.VVS1HNqqqko


38

was said to have taken place (when the asylum seeker boat broke up and sank under

tow from the navy and almost all passengers ended up in the water);169

and that

military chiefs had explicitly told government officials no children were thrown

overboard in the incident.170

However, this information was not revealed until after

the 2001 election.

The children overboard affair took place in the first week of campaigning for the

general federal election held on 10 November, 2001. Ongoing concerns over terrorism

immediately post 9/11 (including the subsequent US-led military intervention in

Afghanistan, to which Australia contributed troops), the continued arrival of

unauthorised boats, and the controversy of the Tampa and Children Overboard

incidents, meant that the issue of asylum seekers was the “main preoccupation”171

of

the campaign, and represented “one of the government’s chief claims to national

leadership”.172

The Howard government campaigned effectively that it, through the new policy of the

‘Pacific Solution’, was dealing with the “crisis” of asylum seeker arrivals, and was

protecting Australia from the threat of terrorism by keeping these people from ever

reaching Australian shores. In this context, Howard’s otherwise unremarkable words

“we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they

come”, took on new potency. Having trailed in public opinion polls all year, the

Howard government was resurgent after Tampa. A newspaper poll, published a week

after the incident under the headline ‘Tampa Gives PM refuge from sinking poll

hopes’, found 77 per cent of voters supported the government’s decision to refuse the

ship entry to Australian waters, and 74 per cent approved of the government’s overall

handling of the issue.173

Two months later, the Howard government was returned with

an increased majority.174

169

Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident, Above n 165 170

Ibid 171

Mares Above n 145 172

Ian Henderson et al ‘Boat Children overboard – Howard hard line becomes poll focus’ The

Australian (Australia) 8 October 2001 1 173

Michael Gordon ‘Tampa Gives PM refuge from sinking poll hopes’ The Age (Melbourne) 4

September 2001 4 174

Australian Electoral Commission, 2001 Federal Election (15 January 2013) AEC

http://results.aec.gov.au/10822/Website/index.html

39

Julian Burnside QC acted for Liberty Victoria against the federal government in the

Tampa case, arguing the asylum seekers’ detention at sea was unlawful. Burnside

contends that the construction of asylum seekers reaching Australia by boat as

“illegal”, while it had existed previously, gained new prominence in 2001, and has

remained a feature of Australian political discourse since. “I think that the word

illegal, came into play in a major way after Tampa in 2001. The Tampa episode

coincided with 9/11. Tampa really made a big difference because after Tampa and

9/11 you didn’t have ‘boat people’, you had ‘Muslim boat people’, you didn’t have

terrorists, you had ‘Muslim terrorists’. To my recollection that’s when the Howard

government started calling them illegals, which links quite neatly with the

proposition, stated or unstated, that boat people are terrorists, or potential

terrorists.”175

Burnside argues the deliberate use of the word ‘illegal’ has been a

crucial strategy in maintaining the position and the policies of successive

governments.176

John Menadue, secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet between

1974 and 1976, and secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs

from 1980 to 1983, argues similarly that the language to describe asylum seekers was

consciously altered during the immigration debates of 2001.

When I was in PM&C, and in immigration, ‘illegal’ was not a

language used by the government or by senior public servants.

They were basically people in need and while managing boat

arrivals was an important issue, it was seen as a customs and

immigration issue, not a military or defence force issue. But that

changed in 2001… there has been, since Tampa, a consistent

attempt to demean asylum seekers, to make them seem less than

human, to change the language, so that the goodwill that everyone

has towards people in need, will be anaesthetised, so that we will

only see them as a threat, and not as human beings in need of

assistance. And that’s been the persistent pattern now since 2001.

175

Interview with Julian Burnside, (Melbourne, Australia, 5 March 2015) 176

Ibid

40

In particular, in the Children Overboard incident, the government

line by ministers, including the Prime Minister, was that ‘these

people are so unworthy, they’d even throw their children overboard

to save themselves’. They were less than human, they were poor

parents, and so on. That was the beginning of that process of

demeaning of asylum seekers. And it’s continued in all sorts of

ways, that they’re illegals, that they are not unauthorised or

irregulars as previous governments have described them, they are

now illegals akin to criminals, that’s the inference governments

want people to understand.177

The 2001 election was ultimately dominated by the issue of asylum seekers arriving

in Australia by boat,178

and the parameters of that discourse were fundamentally

framed by the government’s narrative. That narrative was overwhelmingly negative

towards asylum seekers.179

It was government rhetoric that conflated asylum seekers

with terrorism, and government ministers who questioned the legitimacy of asylum

seekers’ claims to refugee status because of alleged actions (later shown to be untrue)

at sea.

In an analysis of government media releases in 2001 and 2002, Klocker and Dunn

found the federal government described asylum seekers in an “unrelentingly negative

way”.180

The most frequent terms of reference used by the federal government to

portray asylum seekers were ‘illegitimate’ (36 per cent of statements), ‘threatening’

(16 per cent), and ‘illegal’ (11 per cent). Asylum seekers were constructed as

illegitimate by references to their “bypassing/transiting through safe countries”, and

“seeking a migration outcome” as opposed to refuge, and also the “taking of places

from genuine refugees”.181

“While the government’s negative tenor was constant

during the study period, the specific terms of reference altered, from ‘threat’ through

‘other’ to ‘illegality’ and to ‘burden’ ”. Significantly, Klocker and Dunn found too,

that Australia’s media was largely captive to the negative narrative promulgated by

177

Interview with John Menadue, former secretary of department of immigration and ethnic affairs (By

Skype, 4 May 2015) 178

Henderson Above n 172 179

Klocker and Dunn Above n 26 71 180

Ibid 181

Ibid 77

41

government. “Analysis of newspaper reporting during the same period indicates that

the media largely adopted the negativity and specific references of the government.

The media dependence upon government statements and spokespersons in part

explains this.”182

Gale argues similarly that the media assisted the government in promoting its rhetoric

and establishing the narrative that the asylum seekers reaching Australia by boat

represented a “crisis” that required a decisive and forceful reaction. “The arrival of

refugees by boat in 2001 was constructed as a crisis through the use of headlines such

as ‘Island awaits human flood’ and ‘5000 new illegals heading this way’. Other front

page headlines such as ‘People-smugglers push Howard’s limits’ and ‘Boatpeople

turn hostile in ocean standoff’ reflect the negative stereotypes that are commonly used

to represent refugees and the means by which they arrive in Australia.”183

Again, it must be stressed that the media did not react as a monolithic entity in its

coverage of the asylum debate. There were notable and noisy exceptions to the

government-dominated narrative. The Australian newspaper, nominally right-leaning

and a supporter of the Howard government, fiercely questioned the government’s

actions over Tampa and Children Overboard. Within one fortnight in August 2001,

the national daily carried headlines which read: ‘A leaky boat to heartbreak’,184

‘REFUGEE CRISIS’,185

‘Cargo of human misery’,186

‘PM’s refugee bungling defies

reason and decency’,187

‘A leaking boat’s cargo of humanity’,188

and ‘The human face

of our rising tide of our refugees’.189

Most of these were page 1 stories, focusing not

on the government’s construction of the asylum seekers’ unauthorised arrival in

Australia, but on the fraught nature of the asylum seekers’ situation at sea, and the

circumstances from which they were fleeing. These stories overtly sought to

182

Ibid 183

Peter Gale, The Politics Of Fear: Lighting The Wik (Pearson Education Australia, Sydney, 2005)

145 184

Keith Saunders, ‘A leaky boat to heartbreak’, The Australian (Australia), 28 August 2001 14 185

Paul Kelly, ‘REFUGEE CRISIS’, The Australian (Australia), 30 August 2001 1 186

Robert Garran, Vanda Carson and Tracy Sutherland, ‘Cargo of human misery’, The Australian

(Australia), 29 August 2001 1 187

Editorial, ‘PM’s refugee bungling defies reason and decency’, The Australian (Australia), 30

August 2001 10 188

Belinda Hickman, ‘A leaking boat’s cargo of humanity’, The Australian (Australia), 17 August

2001 1 189

Vanda Carson, Natalie O’Brien & Megan Saunders, ‘The human face of our rising tide of

refugees’, The Australian (Australia), 24 August 2001 1

42

‘humanise’ the asylum seekers coming to Australia (‘the human face…’ ‘…cargo of

humanity’), in what can be seen as a direct challenge to the government’s asylum

rhetoric. The government responded by attempting to tighten its control of the flow of

information about asylum seekers. In the aftermath of the Children Overboard

incident, the defence department ordered that “no personalising or humanising

images” of asylum seekers could be taken by department staff, so that these could not

find their way into the public domain.190

The foreign editor of The Australian, Greg Sheridan, was perhaps the most explicit in

criticising the government’s rhetoric, and of its efforts to control the asylum narrative.

He argued the government’s deliberate portrayal of asylum seekers as dangerous,

threatening, and illegitimate was a fundamental component of its policy objective, not

simply an addendum to it. And he stated that government control of access to

information (in this case, restriction of the media’s access to the refugees themselves,

to hear their stories first-hand) was a key element in dominating the public narrative

formed around and about them.

The government has consistently tried to dehumanise the

refugees. This follows a familiar historical pattern. If you

dehumanise a group of people in the public mind, it is

much easier to deny them their human rights without

generating a vast outcry. Thus, in typically undemocratic

fashion, the media has been consistently denied access to

the refugee centres lest it actually report on the harrowing

stories of these people and, by humanising them, generate

some sympathy for them.191

3.5: 2013 - Asylum and the language of war

In 2013 the language of asylum was made synonymous with the language of war.

2013 was again an election year, coming, as in 2001, at the peak of a surge of boat-

190

Senate Select Committee on a certain maritime incident Above n 165 191

Greg Sheridan, ‘Inflammatory denial of human dignity’, The Australian, (Australia), 6 September

2001 11

43

borne asylum seekers arriving in Australia, and amplifying community concerns

about uncontrollable, unauthorised migration to Australia. 51,637 asylum seekers

arrived by boat in Australian territory between 2009 and 2013, a wave larger than any

previous cohort.192

The asylum seekers came from across the world, including

southeast and south Asia (including significant numbers of Tamils from Sri Lanka),

Africa, central Asia, and the Middle East.193

References to war or armed conflict in Australian discussion of asylum seekers was

not original in 2013. Immigration minister MacKellar was forced to reject rumours of

an ‘armada’ of Vietnamese boats in 1977, and, in 2001, Pickering, noted that the

discourse around asylum seekers “often elides the vocabulary of war with that of

crime”. But comparisons between asylum seeker boats and military conflict

developed a new currency in 2013. Both major political parties – Labor was in power

until the election in September, with the Liberal-National coalition in office following

its election victory – used metaphors, and even literal descriptions, of war to describe

Australia’s position in relation to boat arrivals.

Both Labor Prime Ministers in 2013, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard,194

were anxious

to draw a distinction between the asylum seekers who arrived by boat and the people

smugglers who had engineered their journey. “It is very important… to separate in the

community’s mind… the problem of seeing more boats from the people who are on

those boats. It is not, in my mind, a question of blaming the people who are on those

boats.”195

However, the government said, aiding asylum seekers to reach Australia

was “people-smuggling”, and, beyond being a criminal act, was an “evil” business

that “preyed on human misery”.196

“People smugglers are the vilest form of human

life,” Rudd said. “They trade on the tragedy of others and that’s why they should rot

192

Phillips and Spinks, Above n 45 193

Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection, ‘Indonesia as a transit country in

irregular migration to Australia, September 2014, Irregular Migration Research Programme

(Occasional Paper Series) http://www.immi.gov.au/pub-res/Documents/research/indonesia-transit-

country.pdf 194

Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia 2010-2013 (Labor Party) 195

Press conference with Julia Gillard, Prime Minister, and Chris Bowen, immigration minister,

‘Asylum seekers; Malaysia agreement; Commonwealth Ombudsman (Press conference transcript,

Canberra, 13 October 2011) 196

Jaffa McKenzie and Reza Hasmath, ‘Deterring the “boat people”: Explaining the Australian

government’s People Swap response to asylum seekers’ (2013) 48(4) Australian Journal of Political

Science 420

http://www.immi.gov.au/pub-res/Documents/research/indonesia-transit-country.pdf


44

in jail and, in my own view, rot in hell.”197

The language used to oppose the people-

smugglers’ industry was bellicose. Ministers regularly referred to their willingness to

“fight the fight against people smugglers”,198

whom they described as “the common

enemy”.199

The government’s policies were promoted as “smashing the people

smugglers’ business model”.200

But the language was carefully chosen, and directed.

As McKenzie and Hasmath argue: “The government used this terminology in media

releases and press conferences… but such language was absent from parliamentary

debates. This indicates the public was the potential audience to which the

demonisation of people smugglers was directed.”201

Scott Morrison,202

the Coalition’s immigration spokesman (who became immigration

minister after the election) directly compared the arrival of asylum seeker boats with a

military conflict: “This is a war against people smuggling and you’ve got to approach

it on that basis,”203

he said in a television interview. The inflammatory nature of the

language was noted by his interlocutor, Morrison was asked: “Isn’t this debate now

utterly hysterical? Is it right to start describing this as a war with people smugglers?”

“This is a war against people smugglers,” he replied.204

The ‘humanitarian’ rationale for Australia’s actions, first posited in the 1970s,

returned to the forefront of public discourse, but in inverse form. In the 1970s it was

argued by government that Australia had a humanitarian obligation to assist and

accept boats trying to reach Australia. In 2013, it was posited that it was humanitarian

to forcibly push boats back. “The most humanitarian, the most decent, the most

197

Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, quoted in Emma Rodgers, ‘Rudd wants people smugglers

to “rot in hell”’ ABC News (online) 17 April 2009

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/17/2545748.htm 198

Rudd, Kevin, Prime Minister of Australia, quoted in ‘PM’, ABC Radio, 17 April 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2546098.htm 199

Lauren Wilson, ‘Rudd, PNG agree to fight against “common enemy” of people smugglers’, The

Australian (online) 15 July 15 2013 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-

affairs/rudd-png-agree-to-fight-against-common-enemy-of-people-smugglers/story-fn59nm2j-

1226679665489 200

Khalid Khoser, ‘Smash all you want; it won’t stop the people smugglers’, The Drum, ABC online, 3

November 2011 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-04/koser-smash-all-you-want-it-wont-deter-the-

people-smugglers/3625768 201

McKenzie and Hasmath, Above n 196 202

Scott Morrison, Australian immigration minister 2013-2014 (Liberal Party/Coalition government)

Mr Morrison, and his office, did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this paper 203

Chris Uhlmann, Interview with Scott Morrison, Minister for Immigration, 7:30 Report (ABC

Television) 18 July 2013 http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3806305.htm 204

Ibid

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/rudd-png-agree-to-fight-against-common-enemy-of-people-smugglers/story-fn59nm2j-1226679665489



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-04/koser-smash-all-you-want-it-wont-deter-the-people-smugglers/3625768


http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3806305.htm

45

compassionate thing you can do is stop these boats,” Coalition opposition leader (who

became Prime Minister) Tony Abbott205

argued, “because hundreds… drowned at sea

during the flourishing of the people smuggling trade.”206

Abbott campaigned for the election using a series of three-word slogans, the most

memorable of which – and, electorally at least, perhaps the most effective – was his

party’s asylum seeker policy encapsulated: “stop the boats”.207

Prime Minister after 7

September, he used the comparison of armed conflict to justify withholding

information about government actions to achieve this aim. “We are in a fierce contest

with these people smugglers and if we were at war we wouldn't be giving out

information that is of use to the enemy… I’ll be accountable to the Australian public

at the next election – they expect us to stop the boats and that's what we are doing.”208

Abbott’s immigration minister Scott Morrison instituted the government’s asylum

seeker policy under a new name: Operation Sovereign Borders. The “operation” was

headed by a Lieutenant General in the Australian Army, who appeared for media

briefings in full military dress uniform.209

This nomenclature and appearance further

emphasised the impression that Australia was engaged in a military conflict against

the passage of boats arriving in Australian territory. The press briefings were reduced

to “farce”210

– in the words of at least one journalist in attendance – by the refusal of

either the Lt-General or the Minister to reveal any information about boats that had

been interdicted at sea, boarded, or turned back, repeatedly using the military-style

justification of secrecy for “operational matters”. “This is a border security

205

Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia 2013-present (at time of publication) (Liberal

Party/Coalition government) 206

Lisa Cox ‘Tony Abbott: Australians sick of being lied to by United Nations’ The Sydney Morning

Herald (online) 10 March 2015 http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-

australians-sick-of-being-lectured-to-by-united-nations-after-report-finds-antitorture-breach-20150309-

13z3j0.html 207

Heather Ewart, ‘How do asylum seekers feel about prospect of TPV return’ 7:30 Report (online) 4

September 2013 www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3841335.htm 208

‘Tony Abbott compares stopping asylum-seeker boats to war’ News.com.au, 10 January 2014

http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-compares-stopping-asylumseeker-boats-to-war/story-

fncynjr2-1226798726896 209

Press conference with Scott Morrison, minister for immigration, and Lieutenant General Angus

Campbell, Australian Army (Sydney, 23 September 2013)

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/143035/20140402-

1303/www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/sm/2013/sm208387.htm 210

in the words of an interrogating journalist: press conference with Tony Abbott, Prime Minister

(Melbourne, 8 November 2013) https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2013-11-08/press-conference-

melbourne

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-australians-sick-of-being-lectured-to-by-united-nations-after-report-finds-antitorture-breach-20150309-13z3j0.html



http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-compares-stopping-asylumseeker-boats-to-war/story-fncynjr2-1226798726896

http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-compares-stopping-asylumseeker-boats-to-war/story-fncynjr2-1226798726896

46

operation. Briefings will not be provided on tactical and operational matters that may

compromise current or future operational matters.”211

The government further emphasised its conflict aspect when it passed legislation in

2015 to change the title of the ‘operational arm’ of the (only recently-renamed)

Department of Immigration and Border Protection to the ‘Australian Border Force’.

“The ABF will be the nation’s first line of defence against individuals and networks

seeking to undermine our border controls or threaten our community,” new Coalition

immigration minister Peter Dutton212

said, announcing the semantic alteration.213

Commentators have seized upon the political utility of the nomenclature of war.

MacCallum argues, “the cloak of a military campaign against the hapless asylum

seekers has been adopted as a political camouflage, partly to inflate the importance of

what is, by any normal measure, no more than an irritant, and partly to justify the cult

of secrecy”.214

Greg Lake, the immigration department’s former director of offshore processing and

transfers (of asylum seekers) argues that the language used to describe asylum seekers

changed within the department also, driven by different parts of the department which

variously viewed the asylum issue as one of compliance with international legal

obligations, or of detention, or of case management.215

But he says the significant

semantic shift in public discourse began ahead of the election year in 2013, as the

Labor government wrestled with the politically-damaging issue of boats arriving

almost every week. The government, Lake argues, was “searching for a new

vocabulary” to explain and justify a “toughening” of asylum policy.216

“By the time

Manus and Nauru were being contemplated in 2012, even when they were talking

about the Malaysia Swap,217

I think the language had shifted, so that it was much

211

Morrison and Campbell Above n 209 212

Peter Dutton, immigration minister 2014-present (at time of publication) Liberal Party/Coalition

Government) 213

Peter Dutton, ‘Australian Border Force one step closer’ (Ministerial media release, 14 May 2015)

http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/peterdutton/2015/Pages/Australian-Border-Force-one-step-

closer.aspx 214

MacCallum, Mungo, ‘Asylum seekers and the language of war’, The Drum (online) 14 January

2014 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-13/maccallum-operation-sovereign-borders/5196708 215

Interview with Greg Lake (By Skype, 7 May 2015) 216

Ibid 217

an attempted negotiation with Malaysia to swap asylum seekers in Australia with recognised

refugees in Malaysia. Ruled unlawful by the High Court. For details, see: Anthea Mulakala,

47

more deliberately and intentionally framed around phrases such as ‘economic

migrants’, or ‘detainees’ who are ‘transferred’. And that was driven by a political

imperative. What that meant was, ministerial staffers would require briefs or letters,

either for a public or a private purpose, to be changed to use that kind of language.

They would specifically ask for that kind of language to be used.”218

A communications officer within the immigration department – who was interviewed

on condition of anonymity, because of the sensitivities of the subject – says a peak in

boat arrivals in mid-2013 coincided with political ‘boiling point’ and a ‘media frenzy’

over the issue of asylum.219

But, the officer argues, many journalists writing about the

issue of asylum were unfamiliar with the specific meanings of terms such as ‘asylum

seeker’ or ‘refugee’, or with Australia’s migration classifications, and as such were

vulnerable to subtle manipulation by changes in rhetoric. Foreign minister Bob

Carr’s220

stated in June 2013 that most boat-borne asylum seekers arriving in

Australia were “economic migrants” and not genuine refugees,221

a statement that

fundamentally changed media, and consequently public, perceptions. “The term

‘economic migrant’ became synonymous in the media with a large proportion of

those seeking asylum,” the officer says. “It became the norm to question the motives

of those getting on a boat to Australia, there were distinct connotations that we were

being taken advantage of as a country.”222

Post-election, the new government carefully constructed the language it intended to

use in discussion of asylum seekers, the officer says. “A document was circulated

within the department from the Minister which outlined expected terminology.

‘Irregular maritime arrival’ becoming ‘illegal maritime arrival’ was the most

significant instruction because of its sheer use. But this also carried through to other

‘Understanding the Australia-Malaysia Refugee Swap’, In Asia (online) 24 August 2011,

http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia/2011/08/24/understanding-the-australia-malaysia-refugee-swap/ 218

Ibid 219

Interview with Department of Immigration and Border Protection Communications Officer

(anonymous) (Interview by email, 8 June 2015) 220

Bob Carr, Australian foreign minister 2012-2013 221

Lenore Taylor, ‘Bob Carr’s comments foreshadow Labor asylum seeker clampdown’, The Guardian

(online), 28 June 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/28/rudd-government-asylum-

seeker-policy 222


(anonymous) (Interview by email, 8 June 2015)

48

terms – such as the directive not to use ‘clients’ but ‘detainees’.”223

The control of this

public language was crucial in establishing the parameters within which the asylum

policy debate could take place, and in which public opinions were formed. “The

overall effect of this is one of framing: framing the department’s approach, framing

the media’s attitudes, framing the public’s understanding,” the officer says. “Asylum

seekers became an amorphous group and I think this language merely reinforced the

‘otherness’”.224

Former immigration minister Evans argues that the language of government, in

framing the issue of asylum as one of border protection, was profoundly influential on

media reportage and consequently on public understanding of the issue. “The media

tend to use that language, journalists will use the lines out of a press release, young

journos in particular are just trying to file their story, and if the government pushes

the border security context, if the issue is presented in that way, you report it in that

context. It’s not just the particular words, it’s the whole structure and context. The

government can announce: ‘as part of Operation Sovereign Borders, the minister for

Border Protection announced the border force had caught 40 more illegals,’ or it can

say, ‘today, the minister for immigration and citizenship reported customs had

rescued 40 asylum seekers’. It’s a different story.”225

As Evans, the department’s communications officer, and Lake demonstrate, and as

Pickering, MacCallum, and others have independently argued, the confrontational

language towards asylum seekers is not an adjunct to “hardline”226

policies to repel

and deter boats, or a semantic device to smooth the passage of potentially

controversial legislation. Rather, it is a fundamental part of the policies themselves.

The aggressive and oppositional nomenclature of conflict does not simply permit

governments to enact forceful policies to counter a real or perceived threat: that

language compels governments to act in that way. In times of war or national crises,

other competing interests, such as concern for individual human rights, can be

223

Ibid 224

Ibid 225

Interview with Chris Evans (By Skype, 16 June 2015) 226

Government of the Republic of Nauru, Press Release, ‘Australian immigration minister delivers

hardline message on illegal boat arrivals’ 9 October 2014 http://www.naurugov.nr/government-

information-office/media-release/australian-immigration-minister-delivers-hardline-message-on-

illegal-boat-arrivals.aspx

49

overridden by the need for decisive government action.227

The language of war gives

governments the imprimatur, indeed the obligation, to respond to the threats enlivened

by its rhetoric. Failure to respond to those threats with significant force would be

derelict. “Metaphors of war justify the need to repel whatever is hostile and

threatening,” Pickering writes. “ ‘Immigration controls’ become matters of ‘national

security’; a ‘national emergency’ requires ‘full deployment’ of the armed forces on a

‘prime defence mission’ to ‘detect incursions’.”228

227

Sharon Pickering, ‘The Hard Press of Asylum’, 2000 1(8) Forced Migration Review 32 228

Ibid

50

4. Australian attitudes towards asylum seekers

4.1: Opposition to asylum seekers

Australian public attitudes towards asylum seekers arriving by boat have consistently

hardened over the four decades since the first cohort of Vietnamese arrived in the

north of the country. “Since then,” McHugh-Dillon argues, “opinion polls have

indicated overwhelmingly negative public attitudes towards unauthorised arrivals and

high levels of support for punitive policies towards them.”229

A skepticism about the

legality or properness of arriving by sea, or about the legitimacy of boat-borne asylum

seekers’ claims for protection, have combined with broader, historical migration

concerns around the ‘yellow peril’, impact on jobs, or on social cohesion.230

Comparisons between polls of different eras are imperfect – because of changes to

polling data collection, questions, and sampling – but serve as broadly analogous and

as reflection of the trend of progression of Australian community attitudes.

4.1.1: The 1970s

Between 1976 and 1979, as the first ‘wave’ of Indo-Chinese asylum seekers arrived in

Australia in steadily increasing numbers, Australian attitudes towards the new arrivals

turned significantly more oppositional. A Morgan Gallup poll in December 1977

found 13 per cent of Australians at that time wanted to allow “any number” of boat

arrivals to stay, while 60 per cent wanted to “limit” the number of boats, and 20 per

cent wanted to “stop all boat arrivals”. When the same questions were asked 15

months later, in March 1979, the number of people who wanted to allow all boat

arrivals to land had fallen to eight per cent, while the number who wanted all boats

stopped had jumped to 32 per cent (the number who wanted a ‘limited’ number of

boat arrivals had fallen only marginally to 57 per cent).231

Initial government efforts

229

Harriet McHugh-Dillon, ‘If they are genuine refugees, why? Public attitudes to unauthorized

arrivals in Australia’, Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture (Occasional papers) April 2015 230

Above Phillips and Spinks n 45 1 231

Morgan Gallup Poll, cited in Betts, Katharine, ‘Boatpeople and Public Opinion in Australia’ (2001)

9(4) People and Place 34-48 Poll 191A, 3-4 December 1977. Question: ‘Have you read or heard of the

hundreds of refugees from Vietnam who have landed in Darwin from small boats (98.4 per cent ‘yes’).

‘Would you allow any number of them to live permanently here – or limit their number – or stop them

from staying here?’ Poll 254 Feb/Mar 1979 Question: ‘About refugees from Vietnam – would you

51

to portray the arrival of boats as an extraordinary and limited circumstance, and to

frame Australia’s response as one grounded in a humanitarian rationale and

international legal obligation, appear not to have been accepted by the Australian

public, as latent concerns about an irresistible wave of ‘unknowns’ arriving found

reinforcement through continued arrivals.

Attitudes towards boat arrivals 1977, 1979: Australia should allow:

Any

number of

boats (%)

Limited

number of

boats

Stop all

boats

Can’t say Total

Dec 1977 13 60 20 7 100

Mar 1979 8 57 32 4 100 232

4.1.2: The early 90s

In 1993, nearly one year after the introduction of mandatory detention, an Age-

Saulwick poll appeared to show community attitudes significantly opposed towards

asylum seekers arriving by boat. The poll (which asked different questions to those in

the 1970s) found 44 per cent of respondents wanted asylum seekers sent back to the

countries they had left, “regardless of what they say might happen to them” if

returned.233

Forty-six per cent of people said boat arrivals should be detained while

their claims were assessed. Seven per cent said all should be allowed to stay in

Australia.234

Men were more likely than women, and those born in Australia more

likely than overseas-born, to want asylum seekers forcibly sent back to their country

of origin.235

allow any number of them to live here permanently – or limit their number – or stop them from staying

here?’ 232

Ibid 233

Shaun Carney ‘Asia-Australia Divide is still wide’ The Age (Melbourne), 11 October 1993 1 234

Age-Saulwick Poll, 28 September, 1993. Question: ‘You may know that some people have travelled

to Australia from Asia in small boats and have applied to stay as migrants. Do you think people who

attempt to become migrants in this way should be: sent straight back to where they come from despite

what they say may happen to them: assessed with all other migrant applicants, and held in custody in

the meantime: or allowed to stay as migrants in Australia?’ Data from national random telephone

sample, 1000 registered voters. cited in Betts Above n 48 235

Ibid

52

Attitudes towards boat arrivals, 1993: People on boats, Australia should:

Total Men Women Born in

Australia

Not born in

Australia

Send back 44 51 37 45 40

Detain and

assess

46 40 52 46 46

Allow to

stay

7 5 8 6 8

Don’t know 3 4 3 3 6

Total 100 100 100 100 100

236

4.1.3: 2001

Australian attitudes to boat-borne asylum seekers appeared to be negatively

influenced by the Tampa crisis, September 11 terrorist attacks, and Children

Overboard affair, in 2001. The government’s handling of the Tampa crisis was largely

supported by the Australian people: 77 per cent supported the government’s decision

to refuse the ship entry to Australian waters, and 74 per cent approved of the

government’s overall handling of the issue.237

The terrorist attacks on the US on

September 11, which government ministers directly linked to the arrival of asylum

boats in the immediate aftermath, also appeared to turn Australian attitudes towards

asylum seekers more oppositional. Just prior to September 11, 50 per cent of

Australians wanted all asylum seeker boats forcibly turned away. In the immediate

aftermath, that figure had risen to 56 per cent.238

236

Ibid 237

Gordon Above n 173 238

Dennis Shanahan and Megan Saunders, ‘Poll backs PM’s stand – The Tampa crisis – transfer to

navy troop-carrier begins’ The Australian (Australia) 4 September 2001 1 Dennis Shanahan and Megan

Saunders ‘Attitudes to boat people hardening’ The Australian (Australia) 31 October 2001 11

53

Attitudes towards boat arrivals before and after September 11, 2001:

Australia should:

Before September 11 (4 September, 2001)

After September 11 (31 October, 2001)

Turn back all boats 50 56

Allow some boats to enter 38 33

Allow all boats to enter 9 8

Uncommitted 3 3

Total 100 100 239

In the aftermath of the Tampa crisis, the Children Overboard affair, and the

September 11 terrorist attacks, Australian attitudes towards asylum seekers appeared

the most oppositional of an international survey of similar countries. (It should be

noted, for the international comparison, the question asked was in relation to asylum

seekers arriving in Australia, not the countries of the respondents).

Attitudes towards boat arrivals arriving in Australia, domestic and international

response: Australia should:

Australia New Zealand USA UK

Accept

refugees

20 38 34 42

Send them

back to sea

68 43 25 45

Undecided 12 19 41 13

Total 100 100 100 100

(No. of

responses)

853 526 567 510

240

239

Newspoll telephone surveys, 31/08/01-02/09/01 and 26/10/01-28/01/10. Question: ‘Thinking now

about asylum seekers or refugees trying to enter Australia illegally, which one of the following are you

personally most in favour of with regards to boats carrying asylum seekers entering Australia? Do you

think Australia should: turn back all boats carrying asylum seekers; allow some boats to enter Australia

depending on the circumstances; allow all boats carrying asylum seekers to enter Australia?’ Cited in

Betts Above n 48 240

Morgan Poll 3446: Question: ‘Recently there has been a lot of discussion about the refugees

arriving in Australia by boat. Do you feel the Australian Government should accept those refugees

arriving in Australia by boat, or put those boats back to sea? Poll taken 12-16 September 2001 cited in

Betts Above n 48

54

4.1.4: 2013

Direct comparisons with the earlier polls are difficult, but the 2013 Lowy Report

found that in 2013, 74 per cent of Australians were either ‘very concerned’ or

‘somewhat concerned’ about ‘unauthorised asylum seekers coming to Australia by

boat’.241

58 per cent of Australians supported ‘offshore processing’ and ‘regional

resettlement’,242

the policies subsequent to the Pacific Solution, under which asylum

seekers are sent to Nauru or the PNG for refugee status determination and

resettlement in a third country. In Lowy’s 2011 poll, 72 per cent of respondents were

‘somewhat concerned’ or ‘very concerned’ about boat-borne asylum arrivals. Of that

72 per cent: 88 per cent believed those who arrived by boat were ‘jumping the queue’,

86 per cent believed boat-borne asylum seekers ‘posed a potential security risk to

Australia’, while 66 per cent disagreed that ‘international treaty obligations mean

Australia has to accept refugees regardless of how they arrive here’.243

4.1.5: Good refugees and bad

It is important to note a distinction apparent in Australian attitudes towards asylum

seekers who arrive by boat, and those who arrive by other methods (through the

offshore humanitarian program or by plane). “The public makes a distinction between

refugees selected under the off-shore program and self-selected asylum seekers,”

Betts says in her analysis of opinion poll data. “Hostility to boatpeople does not mean

hostility to refugees.”244

Australians are broadly supportive – 75 per cent in favour245

– of refugees who have first been assessed overseas, then being resettled in the

country. McKay et al argue that government and media narratives contrasting boat-

borne asylum seekers with resettled refugees are crucial to public perceptions.

241

‘Lowy Institute 2013 Poll’ The Lowy Institute (2013)

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/lowy-institute-poll-2013 242

Ibid 243


http://www.lowyinstitute.org/files/pubfiles/Lowy_Poll_2011_WEB.pdf 14-15 244

Betts Above n 48 245

Markus, A., ‘Fact Sheet 4: Asylum seekers’ Scanlon Foundation Social Cohesion (Research

Program, Monash University) http://monash.edu/mapping-population/public-opinion/fact-

sheets/asylum-seekers-fact-sheet.pdf

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/files/pubfiles/Lowy_Poll_2011_WEB.pdf

55

Refugees accepted under the Humanitarian Programme are

commonly perceived to be deserving of resettlement, partly

because they are seen to be following the ‘correct’ procedure for

entry into Australia. By contrast, negative media reporting and

political discourse, and the public rhetoric surrounding asylum

seekers, imply that their claims are not legitimate, that they pose

a threat to Australian identity and security, and are in some way

engaging in illegal behaviour by not following formal refugee

processes. This perception of illegality is reinforced by the use

of mandatory detention of asylum seekers who arrive without a

valid visa.246

246

McKay et al Above n 23

56

5. The impact of government and media discourse on public attitudes

towards asylum seekers

Quantifying the extent to which government rhetoric – and media reportage of that

rhetoric – influences public opinion of asylum seekers is inherently problematic. Why

people feel the way they feel about a particular issue is often unknown to them, and

the factors that shape those opinions, and by how much, are often complex, contrary,

and changeable. It is certainly the case that several factors – personal experience,

socio-economic background, education level, geographic location (rural/urban), sex,

and own migration history – are all important influences on attitudes towards asylum

seekers.247

As McKay et al found: “attitudes towards asylum seekers were influenced

by a complex interplay between political rhetoric, media reporting, personal

experiences, socio-demographic factors and the way that respondents conceptualised

traditional Australian values.”248

Correlation does not equal causation, and any

assertion of the influence of government and media rhetoric on shaping public

opinion must come with the significant caveat that the level of influence is difficult to

establish empirically.

However, there is strong evidence that, for most people, the mainstream media is the

primary, if not the only, source of information about asylum seekers, and that “media

reporting has an important role in influencing public opinion”.249

Hay argues that:

“media influence does not reside in the power of direct ideological indoctrination, but

in the ability to frame the discursive context within which political subjectivities are

constituted, reinforced and reconstituted”.250

Essentially, the media does not dictate

what its audience should think on particular issues, but it is influential in promoting

about which issues its audience should think, and how it should think about them. The

247

Wilson, S., Meagher, G., Gibson, R., Denemark, K. D. and Western, M. (2005) Australian Social

Attitudes: the First Report. Sydney: UNSW Press.

Hoskin, M. and Mishler, W. (1983) ‘Public Opinion toward New Migrants: A

Comparative’. International Migration 21(4): 440–462

Pedersen, A., Attwell, J. and Heveli, D. (2005) ‘Prediction of Negative Attitudes

toward Australian Asylum Seekers: False Beliefs, Nationalism, and Self-esteem’. Australian

Journal of Psychology 57(3): 148–160 248


Ibid 250

Hay, C., (1996) ‘Narrating Crisis: The Discursive Construction of the Winter of Discontent’,

Sociology 30 (2): 253–77

57

language used by media has been crucial in defining the terms of the asylum debate in

Australia and the framework in which that debate exists.

The nature of the discourse around asylum seekers, and the limitations on it, also

gives disproportionate weight to the influence of government rhetoric and its

reportage by the media, in shaping public opinion. As discussed earlier, the

government is very often the ‘owner’ of information about asylum seekers who

attempt to reach Australia by boat, and can choose to release, or not release,

information, and in a way that suits its narrative and political aims. Similarly, the

media is often significantly reliant on the government for information to report about

asylum seekers, because of the lack of access to asylum seekers themselves, and a

paucity of other independent, verifiable, and knowledgeable sources.251

Physical

distance (people are on boats at sea) and policies of removal (offshore processing,

regional resettlement) further severely limit access the media’s access to first-hand

information independent of government influence or control. A minority of

Australians has first-hand knowledge of boat-borne asylum seekers,252

and

government influence in shaping public opinion can be seen to be amplified on issues

about which people have little or no personal experience.253

In addition, the very act

of seeking asylum – and the consequences of that action, particularly mandatory

detention – results in a loss of agency by asylum seekers.254

Asylum seekers are not

free to speak to the media, to explain their situations, points of view, or motivations.

In the absence of any power to create their own narrative, asylum seekers are

beholden to the narrative created around them by others.

A number of studies, including McKay et al255

and Pederson et al,256

found that

survey participants spontaneously reproduced political rhetoric that had been reported

251

Klocker and Dunn Above n 26 252

K. Turoy-Smith, R. Kane, and A. Pederson, ‘The willingness of a society to act on behalf of

Indigenous Australians and refugees: the role of contact, intergroup anxiety, prejudice, and support for

legislative change’ (2013) 43(2) Journal of Applied Psychology 253

A. Simon and J. Jerit, ‘Toward a theory relation political discourse, media and public opinion’

Journal of Communication 57 (2007) 254-271 p254 254

Ruth L Healey, ‘Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A structuration theory analysis of their

experiences’, (2006) 12 Population Space and Place 257 255


Pedersen et al Above n 27

58

in the media when commenting on asylum seekers.257

In particular, ‘catch-phrases’

such as “queue-jumper”, “illegal” and “terrorist” are reported regularly in focus

groups.258

Former immigration minister Evans says he believes government language

and media constructions of the asylum issue, shape public understanding. “This

language does have an influence on the public, it does lead people to conclusions,

there’s no question about that… I think the language, and the way the issue is

presented, does have an influence in how people see things and on how they

determine their view. These things are designed to add to people’s insecurities, I do

think it has an influence on the public, and to be frank, sometimes the terms have

been used to prick their fears or prejudices.”259

However, the relationship between government, media, and public is more complex

than a simple transmission of ideas, concepts and language from government, through

media, to populace. In public discourse, each of those three ‘actors’ has its own

agency and its own ability to influence the shape, direction and nature of debate.

The media are not simply passive acceptors and reproducers of government rhetoric.

Journalists, their editors, and their media organisations, bring their own beliefs,

understandings and subjectivities to asylum reportage. Media can, and do, choose to

accept or reject government narratives, and that decision can influence government

presentation of issues (for example, in the 1970s, the Australian media rejection of

government construction of asylum as a humanitarian issue).260

Media are also

influenced by broad public opinion on matters, and by their particular audiences,

which provide feedback through circulation figures or viewer numbers, letters to the

editors, phone calls, or online comments.

In addition, the public plays a role not only as the intended audience for government

rhetoric, but as an influence on it. Democratic governance is fundamentally designed

to reflect the will of the people,261

but in modern liberal democracies, administrations

257

McHugh-Dillon Above n 229 258


Interview with Chris Evans (By Skype, 16 June 2015)) 260

see p16 of this paper 261

Cheema, G. Shabbir, and Linda Maguire, ‘Democracy, Governance and Development: A

Conceptual Framework’ (Background Paper for the 4th

Global Forum on Reinventing Government,

59

are attuned with increasing sensitivity to the concerns of their constituencies through

regular opinion polling, market research, and focus groups, as well as more traditional

democratic feedback mechanisms, such as elections.262

Certainly, the progression of asylum discourse in Australia, and the relationship

between government, media, and popular discourse, must be seen as multi-directional,

with each actor in the discourse influencing the others. The actors can be argued to

have a reinforcing influence on each other, with something akin to a racheting effect

on public discourse, as each actor drives the narrative further in a particular direction

– in this case, negative, oppositional attitudes towards asylum seekers – which is

reflected, and then amplified further, by the other actors. In some instances public

opinion can be seen to drive political rhetoric: witness the growing public unease in

the late 1970s over continued boat arrivals – exemplified (and the role of the media

also highlighted) in minister MacKellar’s fraught radio interview – which appeared to

precede a change in government language. In other examples – such as the conflation

between asylum seekers and terrorism propounded by minister Reith in 2001 –

government rhetoric appeared to promote a concept previously unconsidered by many

members of the public. At the very least, the 2001 government narrative entwining

asylum with a possible terrorist threat – presented as a factual account issued by an

authority (and reported by the media) – offered a legitimation of existing beliefs or

concerns. Government reinforcement of those beliefs, may, in turn encourage people

to hold those views more strongly, and express them more regularly or forcefully.263

Again, the media’s role is crucial as the conduit by which these narratives are

propounded and disseminated. As a fundamental (though not sole) line of

communication between government and population, and as a platform on and

through which debate occurs, the media’s participation in asylum discourse is

significant and consequential.

To claim that government rhetoric as reported in the media is the sole determinant of

public opinion on asylum seekers would be to overstate the influence of both of those

Morocco, 10 December 2002)

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan005781.pdf 262

Rushefsky, Mark E., and Kant Patel, Politics, Power and Policy Making: The case of health care

reform in the 1990s (M.E. Sharpe, 1998) 252 263

McHugh-Dillon Above n 229

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan005781.pdf

60

institutions, and to underestimate the complexity of modern political and public

discourses. However, both government rhetoric and media reportage must be seen to

have a significant influence on public opinion. Too, the government’s rhetorical

influence is amplified by the arcane nature of the debate.

61

6. The political construction of asylum narratives

The previous chapters have demonstrated that the narratives currently dominant in

Australian public discourse around asylum seekers – that asylum seekers on boats are

‘queue jumpers’ acting illegally, that they are potential terrorists or threats to national

security, that they are a risk to the Australian way of life - are political constructions,

used deliberately to engineer a desired political outcome, that is: support for

Australia’s current regime of asylum policies. The changes in language used to

describe asylum seekers have not been the result of any casual evolution or responses

to changing circumstance, but rather a series of considered and deliberate

manipulations: in the late 1970s, the language of the improper, undeserving ‘queue

jumper’ emerged; in the early 1990s, asylum seekers were described as ‘illegals’ as

justification for the policy of mandatory detention; in 2001, asylum seekers were

conflated with terrorists and cast as undesirable people; and in 2013, the Australian

polity fused discourse on asylum with the language of war.

Burnside argues the semantic changes have been carefully considered, and

“manipulated, in the nature of propaganda”.264

“I don’t think it’s accidental that

[immigration minister] Morrison issued a directive shortly after he became the

minister saying that the group previously called ‘irregular maritime arrivals’, must

hereafter be called ‘illegal maritime arrivals’. And that has become policy in the

department, in internal communications, and external communications. Now, you

don’t do that, unless you’ve got a very clear objective, and I think the clear objective

is to make the public think these people are criminals.”265

Without the rhetorical

foundation, Burnside says, the broad policy suite – mandatory detention, offshore

processing, boat turn-backs – is unsustainable. “In my view the word ‘illegal’ has

been probably the most powerful element in maintaining the position of successive

governments. Because that, coupled with the recent developments of calling it ‘border

protection’, or ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, persuades a lot of members of the

public that the government is protecting us from dangerous criminals. It is untrue.”266

264

Interview with Julian Burnside, (Melbourne, Australia, 5 March 2015) 265

Ibid 266

Ibid

62

Edward Bernays, in his seminal work on the manipulation of public opinion, ‘The

Engineering of Consent’ argues democratic governance depends “ultimately on public

approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public’s

consent267

to a program or goal.” But rather than resist this engineering, which critics

might condemn as an attempt to manipulate, Bernays argues publics understand “the

right to persuade” is a critical mechanism of democracy, and part of the social

compact. “We expect our elected government officials to try to engineer our consent –

through the network of communications open to them – for the measures they

propose.”268

But, Bernays cautions, rhetorical constructions to engineer consent will

not be effective unless they resonate with already-held beliefs or concerns. Bernays

argues consent can only be achieved by appealing to existing “impulses” or

“motives”, instincts and understandings already consciously or unconsciously held by

the public being convinced.269

Governments seeking to harness popular support for a

policy must know of their publics what their current attitudes are, and what

underlying impulses govern those attitudes.270

This is a crucial point: the ability of successive governments to harness community

fears about unknown boat arrivals has only been possible because those fears existed

already. As seen above, in the late 1970s the Coalition government made inchoate

though genuine efforts to counter these public concerns. These efforts, however, were

not sufficiently effective, and the response of a ‘tougher’ response (coupled with the

constituent and necessary element of ‘harder’ rhetoric) proved a more electorally

appeasing path. Later governments, particularly amid the heightened terror sensitivity

of the 2001 world immediately post-9/11, and the electoral imperative of the federal

polls of 2013, chose not to make any attempt to counter or assuage those public fears,

but rather to enliven and exploit them. Having been shown previously to be an

effective political mechanism, these fears were harnessed for electoral gain.

So how much is government rhetoric simply reflective of community views – the

rationale for a well-supported policy – and how much is the language of the executive

267

Bernays’s italics 268

Edward Bernays, ‘The Engineering of Consent’, (1947) 250 Annals of the American Academy of

Political and Social Science Vol. 250 Mar 1947 114 269

Ibid 270

Ibid

63

moulding public opinion, or moving it in a certain direction? Empirically quantifying

this interdependent relationship is almost impossible, but certainly, the evidence of

people closely and critically involved in the creation and prosecution of government

asylum policy has argued that the construction of language has been deliberate, made

with political outcomes in mind. Bernays describes this process as the

“engineering”271

of consent, Chomsky the “manufacturing”.272

The danger inherent in certain rhetorical constructs is that they can close off the

possibility of other understandings of an issue – they make the narrative put forward

the only one able to be debated. The rhetorical constructions employed create a

discursive environment where any alternative understanding of the issue cannot be

realised or articulated, and genuine debate around the issue is not possible. Chomsky

writes that control of an issue is achieved when those in power “strictly limit the

spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum…

[giving] people the sense that there is free thinking going on, while all the time the

presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of

the debate”.273

Asylum policy in Australia is a case in point: by constructing the

debate as one of ‘national security’, or of ‘illegal’ activity, any alternative framework

– asylum viewed through the prism of humanitarian obligation or of international

legal commitment – is removed from public discourse. Are Australia's asylum seeker

policies supported by the electorate because they reflect the electorate's views, or are

they popular because they are the only viable policies given the fundamental

paradigms which are constructed to support them? Asylum as an issue of national

security and criminality is a legitimate, and obviously electorally-successful, political

construct. But it must be recognised as that: a political construct, engineered for a

political end.

The argument allied to this, that the established policy suite is electorally supported, is

popular with the Australian people, and therefore the correct policy for the country –

argumentum ad populum – is flawed. It is especially so in an area of debate so arcane,

and where information is overwhelmingly controlled by the source creating the

271

Ibid 272

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: the political economy of the mass

media (Bodley Head, first published 1988, 2008 edition) 273

Noam Chomsky, The Way the World Works (Soft Skull Press, 2013) 234

64

policy. Just because a policy course is popular, does not mean it should be the only

one able to be debated. Majoritarianism is not a replacement for genuine democratic

discourse.

Former immigration department secretary John Menadue sees, in the rhetoric of

successive Australian governments, an attempt to appeal to an underlying xenophobia

in Australia, a concern, justified or not, about ‘outsiders’ disrupting Australian

society, economy or way of life. “Historically, I think it’s true, you can make political

gains by appealing to our base instincts, because people are fearful. That’s been

politically successful in Australia, and that’s why it continues to be done: there’s a

political bonus.”274

That underlying concern is not unique to Australia. Almost all cultures, Menadue

says, hold some level of fear of outsiders, but in Australia it has been successfully

exploited for electoral advantage.275

The 2001 election, he says, was the archetypal

example of community concerns being amplified for political gain. An existing

concern about disordered boat arrivals of foreign people (most of them Muslim) was

deliberately conflated with terrorism – in an environment of heightened fear of

Islamist terrorism in the immediate post-9/11 environment – to create a platform of

political support for a seismic policy shift to offshore processing.276

And the rhetorical

constructions used by Australian governments to make this connection – disseminated

through the media – were key elements in convincing their publics of the need for, if

not the desirability of, punitive asylum seeker policies, Menadue argues. “Those

language shifts play a huge part in governments leading the public opinion on the

matter. It would be naïve to think that that language doesn’t send clear messages on

the government’s position on something. I think it has a massive impact on their

support or otherwise.”277

The communications officer within the immigration department argues that semantic

changes are used in internal communications also to shift understanding and policy

274

Interview with John Menadue, former secretary of department of immigration and ethnic affairs (By

Skype, 4 May 2015) 275

Ibid 276

Ibid 277

Ibid

65

frameworks. “Language at [the] immigration [department] was both descriptive and

prescriptive – while language of course reflected the policy of the Government of the

day, it was also a clear indicator of what the outcome was expected to be. While I

believe staff would do their best to make decisions on the facts at hand guided by

policy directives, the language served to set their understanding of the Minister’s

expectations of an outcome.”278

Former minister Evans makes a similar point that

departmental staff look to reflect the attitudes and politics of their ministers and

governments. “Public servants pick up the language of the politicians and they then

start to demonstrate the attitudes that that language reflects. If ministers are using

harsh language and… pejorative terms about people, then that flows through to how

those people will be treated. The language creates an expectation within government

that this is how people like this should be treated.”279

Promotion of potentially-controversial policies such as offshore processing, boat turn-

backs, or regional resettlement, has been made possible by their rhetorical constructs,

the departmental communications officer says. But the officer also argues the

language used by the department has become “detached” from the asylum seekers as

people.280

The political debate on asylum seekers exists all around them, but they are

absent from it, depersonalised by the language used to describe them. “The language

has essentially become more militarised – terms like ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’,

‘on-water matters’, ‘breaking the people smuggler’s trade’, all of these put emphasis

on the process and not the person, and in turn the characterisation of asylum seekers

changes as well. It’s a numbers game – no boat arrivals in x days, x number of turn-

backs. The individual is absent in this discourse,”281

the communications officer says.

Evans sees the language used now to describe asylum seekers in Australia as a result

of the trend begun in the early years of modern Australia’s asylum experience.

Overall, there has been an attempt to dehumanise refugees,

that’s where we’ve got to in the end, that’s where we are now.

278



Interview with Chris Evans, former minister for immigration (By Skype, 16 June 2015) 280



Ibid

66

So people refer to them as ‘illegals’, we use all sorts of military

terms and operational titles and talk about border security. The

whole prism the issue is viewed through is illegal entry to the

country, posing a security threat. That’s become the dominant

language. Whether it drives public opinion or whether public

opinion drove politicians to that point, no doubt it’s been

exploited politically. And it’s been hard on those in politics who

have a slightly different view of the world to push back against

that language when it became so common.282

282

Interview with Chris Evans (By Skype, 16 June 2015)

67

7. International Observations

This paper was written at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the

University of Oxford, during Trinity Term of 2015, which allowed the author to

observe, first-hand, the political and public debates over asylum seekers in the UK

and Europe. Some observational notes follow:

The European spring of 2015 began badly. On April 19, a fishing boat overcrowded

with asylum seekers capsized and sank 60 miles off the coast of Libya, drowning at

least 700 of the passengers onboard.283

But this loss of life at sea was not an isolated

incident, the deaths brought to 1500 the number of people who had drowned trying to

cross the Mediterranean in 2015,284

and on almost any week that the weather allowed

over the summer that followed, ill-equipped fishing boats filled with asylum seekers –

mainly fleeing strife-torn African nations – were piloted across the water seeking

landfall in Europe. The most common route was from Tripoli in Libya to Italy’s

Lampedusa, but numerous boats also travelled from Turkish ports to the Greek islands

of Kos and Lesbos.285

The early-season disaster on the Mediterranean was closely followed by an asylum

vessel stand-off in the Andaman Sea, where boats carrying mainly Rohingyan asylum

seekers fleeing Myanmar were refused permission to land in Malaysia, Thailand, and

Indonesia. In some cases, boats were pushed back to sea, others replenished with fuel

and told to keep moving.286

The United Nations warned the boats would become

“floating coffins” – witnesses reported asylum seekers were killing each other in

fights over dwindling food and water supplies – if the estimated 4000 on board the

boats weren’t allowed to land.287

Southeast Asian countries – led by the Philippines,

which broke the impasse – eventually agreed to allow the boats to land, but most

countries imposed the condition that those asylum seekers found to be refugees would

283

The exact number of deaths is almost certain never to be known: Patrick Kingsley et al., ‘700

migrants feared dead in Mediterranean shipwreck’, The Guardian (online) 19 April 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/19/700-migrants-feared-dead-mediterranean-shipwreck-

worst-yet 284

Ibid 285

EU Business ‘The Mediterranean: key route for EU-bound migrants’ EU Business.com (online) 28

April 2015 http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/europe-migrants.10vk/ 286

Lucy Alexander, ‘“Floating Coffins” boat people battle to the death for food and water’ The Times

(online), 17 May 2015 http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article4442916.ece 287

Ibid

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/19/700-migrants-feared-dead-mediterranean-shipwreck-worst-yet


http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/europe-migrants.10vk/

68

be resettled elsewhere within a year.288

The Andaman crisis was not directly related to

Europe, or the UK, but served, in the European discourse, to contextualise the

Mediterranean crisis and to illustrate that the issue was not one unique to Europe, or

to rich countries. The near-concurrence of the two crises, involving different people,

in different oceans, trying to reach different countries, demonstrated that both were

examples of migratory forces far beyond any one government’s powers to control or

to solve.289

7.1: The United Kingdom

As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron290

has argued Britain’s

broader immigration debate – inclusive of but not limited to the issue of asylum

seekers – is a “hugely emotive subject”291

, and one dominated by existing tropes and

beliefs, rather than considered policy discussion. “It’s a debate too often in the past

shaped by assertions rather than by substantive arguments.”292

Kushner assessed the

public discourse in Britain as one where existing stereotypes about asylum seekers

were consistently reinforced between the state, politicians, the media and the public:

“in Britain at the start of the twenty-first century, the government, state, media and

public have intertwined in a mutually reinforcing and reassuring process to

problematise and often stigmatise asylum-seekers”.293

He cites a “combination of

anti-asylum sentiment finding legitimacy from the top down, alongside the sustenance

provided by the daily press campaign and the encouragement of ordinary people from

the bottom up”.294

Others, such as Lynn and Lea, also posit the existence of a self-reinforcing ‘feedback

loop’ of discourse around asylum seekers. “Conservative electioneering,

288

Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Southeast Asian migrant crisis: timeline of key events’, ABC

News (online) 29 May 2015 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-28/timeline-south-east-asia-migrant-

crisis/6498794 289

Vicki Squire, ‘Accounting for the Dominance of Control: Inter-party dynamics and restrictive

asylum policy in contemporary Britain’ (2008) British Politics 241-261 290

David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 2010-present (at time of publishing)

(Conservative Party) 291

David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, speech 14 April 2011 as reported by BBC

News (online) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13083781 292

Ibid 293

Tony Kushner, ‘Meaning Nothing but Good: Ethics, History and Asylum-Seeker Phobia in

Britain’, Patterns in Prejudice, (2003) 37(3) 261 294

Ibid

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-28/timeline-south-east-asia-migrant-crisis/6498794


69

sensationalist media reports and several genuinely desperate human tragedies, have all

encouraged the view that a host of migrants were – and still are – ‘laying siege’ to

British coastal ports. Predominantly negative portrayals have presented asylum-

seekers as a threat to the stability of society: a challenge to ‘British cultural

distinctiveness’ and therefore, by implication, a ‘serious social problem’.”295

Similarly to the Australian discourse, the dichotomy between the genuine refugee and

the undeserving asylum seeker achieved a sustained prominence throughout the 1990s

and 2000s.296

Winder argues UK governments were pressured by public opinion –

fanned by media reportage – to take a ‘harder’ line against asylum seekers. “Public

opinion regarded the migrants as a mere pest. The new term ‘asylum seeker’ rapidly

acquired a sarcastic prefix: ‘bogus’. The British public came to believe that all

migrants were false: none had a right to be here; all were helping themselves at our

expense. There was a sharp political pressure to get tough.”297

Here can be heard

echoes of the Australian debate of the late 1970s and early 90s: public concern over

uncontrolled, unauthorised arrivals, and voter demands on government to impose its

control on the arrivals, to bring control to the disordered chaos.

The other consistent rhetorical construct to emerge in British political and media

discourse was of Britain as an “El Dorado” for asylum seekers, who were seeking to

exploit benefit schemes more generous than those on the continent. (The exact term

was used by the mayor of the French city of Calais (the closest port city to the UK)

Natacha Bouchart, who said every migrant who comes to Calais “comes because they

believe they will be looked after if they get to Britain”.298

) However, the narrative

around Britain being a “soft touch”299

exploited by asylum seekers had existed for two

decades by the time of Bouchart’s comments. And it was often linked to not only

295

N. Lynn, and S. Lea, ‘A phantom menace and the new Apartheid: the social construction of asylum-

seekers in the United Kingdom’, Discourse and Society (2003) 14(4) 426 296

Evan Smith, ‘Defining and demonizing asylum: a brief history of UK refugee discourses’, A Hatful

of History (online), 2 July 2013, https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/defining-and-

demonising-asylum-a-brief-history-of-uk-refugee-discourses/ 297

Robert Winder, Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain (Abacus, London, 2006)

419 298

Nick Fagge, ‘Cameron must come and tell them UK is no El Dorado says Calais mayor as she

repeats threat to block port to make Britain change its policy’, Mail Online (online), 4 September 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2744227/Cameron-come-tell-UK-no-El-Dorado-says-Calais-

mayor-repeats-threat-block-port-make-Britain-change-policy.html 299

Cameron Above n 291

https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/defining-and-demonising-asylum-a-brief-history-of-uk-refugee-discourses/


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2744227/Cameron-come-tell-UK-no-El-Dorado-says-Calais-mayor-repeats-threat-block-port-make-Britain-change-policy.html


70

economic impact, but a more widespread breakdown of British race relations and

communal harmony. Home Secretary Michael Howard300

said in 1995 that “fair but

firm and effective immigration control is a necessary condition” for “preserving good

race relations in this country”.301

For far too many people across the world, this country is far too

attractive a destination for bogus asylum seekers and other illegal

immigrants. The reason is simple: it is far easier to obtain access to

jobs and benefits here than almost anywhere else.302

Three years later, the man who succeeded Howard at the Home Office removed the

term “bogus” from the government idiolect.303

With that ruling came a recognition of

the power of government language to shape public thinking, especially coupled with

its reproduction and amplification by the media. Explaining Jack Straw’s304

decree,

immigration minister Mike O’Brien explained: “We decided we should stop using the

word ‘bogus’, to take it out of the lexicon. We don’t use it… it has become merely a

phrase. The word ‘asylum seeker’ has been linked in the media to ‘bogus’, and all

asylum seekers are not bogus. We recognize that.” The government proposed the new

modifier “abusive” to be appended to asylum seekers whose claims were found not to

be genuine. “The words will change,” O’Brien said. “A year from now, perhaps, the

word ‘abusive’ will become a pejorative term. But it is making sure that the words

don’t distort the agenda.”305

But narratives, once established, can be much harder to deconstruct and remove from

prominent public use. While the phrase “bogus asylum seeker” was not used again by

the Labour government in power, it remained a regular favourite in the shorthand of

headline writers, and retained a strong presence in political discourse, even formally,

as part of the Conservative party election manifesto in 2000, which accused Labour of

300

Michael Howard, Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department (more

colloquially known as the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom) 1993-1997 (Conservative Party) 301

House of Commons Deb (1995-1996) 20 November 1995 vol267 cc335-48 (Michael Howard) 302

Ibid c338 303

the phrase bogus asylum seeker first appeared in 1985 in response to a growing number of Tamil

asylum seekers: Masocha Shepard, Asylum seekers, social work, and racism (Palgrave Macmillan,

London, 2015) 55 304

Jack Straw, UK Home Secretary 1997-2001 (Labour Party) 305

Alan Travis, ‘Bogus asylum seekers make way for abuse’, The Guardian (London) 12 November

1998 4

71

“flooding our country with bogus asylum seekers”.306

307

An analysis by Oxford

University’s Migration Observatory of newspaper coverage of asylum seekers in the

British press between 2010 and 2012 found the most common modifier for the word

“immigrant” across all newspapers was “illegal”, and the most common descriptor for

“asylum seeker” was “failed”.308

In the summer of 2015, British government rhetoric around the issue of asylum

seekers crossing the Mediterranean seeking to reach Europe closely was strikingly

similar to that of Australian governments since the peak of the fourth wave of

Australian arrivals in 2012, particularly in the construction of the narrative that boat-

borne asylum seekers were largely undeserving of protection and whose passage was

part of a criminal operation. Home secretary Theresa May309

said in May that “the

large number of people are coming from countries like Nigeria, Eritrea and Somalia.

They’re economic migrants who’ve paid criminal gangs to take them across the

Mediterranean”.310

She wrote that the resettlement quotas proposed by the EU would

only act as a “pull factor”, and assist the “criminal [smuggling] gangs to keep plying

their evil trade”.311

The UK “cannot do anything which encourages more people to

make these perilous journeys”, May argued.312

May’s comments echo those of a

succession of Australian government ministers: Prime Minister Rudd – people

306

Edna Fernandes, ‘LibDems accuse Labour, Tories in race row’ Reuters (online) 10 April 2000 307

Similar efforts elsewhere to deconstruct established narratives have also proven difficult. In 2013

the Associated Press in the United States said it would no longer use the phrase “illegal immigrant” to

describe a person in that country without documentation. The New York Times, after protests outside

its newsroom, adopted a similar approach – while not banning the phrase it encouraged reporters and

editors to “consider alternatives”. However, the phrase continues to be used by politicians, including

President Barack Obama, and retains a prominent place in public discourse: ‘The Times shifts on

‘illegal immigrant’ but doesn’t ban the use’ The New York Times (online), 23 April 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/business/media/the-times-shifts-on-illegal-immigrant-but-doesnt-

ban-the-use.html?_r=0: E. Ostermeir, ‘When will Obama stop using the term illegal immigrant’,

University of Minnesota, Humphrey School of Public Affairs (online) 3 April 2013,

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2013/04/when_will_obama_stop_using_the.php 308

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, Migration in the News: portrayals of

immigrants, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in British newspapers, 2010-2012 Migration

Observatory Report, 8 August 2013

http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/migobs/Report%20-

%20migration%20in%20the%20news.pdf 309

Theresa May, UK Home Secretary 2010-present (at time of publishing) (Conservative Party) 310

Dan Bloom, ‘Italian minister blasts “short-sighted” Theresa May after she vows to force

Mediterranean migrants home’, The Mirror (online) 13 May 2015 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-

news/mediterranean-short-sighted-theresa-may-5689008 311

Theresa May, Home Secretary of the UK, ‘EU is putting migrants at risk’, The Times (online) 13

May 2015, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/thunderer/article4438589.ece 312

Ibid

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/business/media/the-times-shifts-on-illegal-immigrant-but-doesnt-ban-the-use.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/business/media/the-times-shifts-on-illegal-immigrant-but-doesnt-ban-the-use.html?_r=0

72

smuggling is an “evil business” that “trades on the tragedy of others”313

– foreign

minister Bob Carr “a whole bunch of people who come… are economic migrants”,314

and immigration spokesman Morrison – “softer policies will encourage more

boats”315

– in the years before.

7.2: Europe

In addition, there are distinct similarities between the semantics of European

authorities in the summer of 2015, and the rhetoric used within the Australian polity

since the election year of 2013, most notably in the militarisation of asylum language.

Leaked documents from the European Union in May 2015 discuss the proposal for a

“military operation”316

in the Mediterranean designed to “disrupt the migrants

smuggling business model”.317

These semantics mirror the language used by the

Australian government, which posits a “military-led border security operation”318

to

“disrupt the people smuggling trade”.319

The Australian-promulgated strategy of restricting the flow of information to the

media, and through them to publics domestic and foreign, has been suggested as a key

action for the European Union as it plans a response to the movement of asylum

seekers across the Mediterranean. The European Union Military Committee (EUMC)

has argued an “information strategy from the outset is essential” as part of a “military

operation” against refugee boats.320

The EU document uses almost identical language,

and justifications, as Australia in advocating a need for secrecy about ‘on-water’

313

McKenzie and Hasmath Above n 196 314

Taylor Above n 221 315

Scott Morrison, ‘We must act before more lives are lost’, Sunday Telegraph (Sydney) 19 December

2010 98 316

European External Action Service ‘Military Advice on the ‘draft crisis management concept for a

possible CSDP operation to disrupt human smuggling networks in the southern and central

Mediterranean’ Council of the European Union (online via Wikileaks) 12 May 2015

https://wikileaks.org/eu-military-refugees/EUMC 317

Ibid 318

Commonwealth of Australia, Operation Sovereign Borders, ‘Operation Sovereign Borders

Organisational Chart’, Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection, June 2014

http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/OSBOrgChartJune2014.pdf 319

Capital Hill Advisory, ‘Border Protection Policy Round-up’, Capital Hill Advisory (online) 27

August 2013 http://capitalhilladvisory.com.au/border-protection/ 320

European External Action Service Above n 316

http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/OSBOrgChartJune2014.pdf

http://capitalhilladvisory.com.au/border-protection/

73

operations. The EU argues: “rescue operations led during this operation should not be

publicised in order to avoid providing an incentive to migrants”.321

As in the Australian example, the media management and rhetorical control element

of the policy is not an adjunct to the policy itself, but rather a key part of it. The EU

sees a considered public relations campaign as crucial to winning, and maintaining,

public support through careful “expectation management”.322

“The military

committee identifies a risk to EU reputation linked to any perceived transgressions by

the EU force through any public misinterpretation of its task and objectives, or the

potential negative impact should loss of life be attributed, correctly or incorrectly, to

action or inaction by the EU force.”323

Paszkiewicz argues the narratives constructed

by the EU and its constituent governments have been used, as those same narratives

have been employed in Australia, to establish a rationale for a militarised policy

response. “At its heart, the EU has justified its militarised action plan by conflating

‘migrant smuggling’ with ‘human trafficking’ – the two terms have been used

interchangeably by senior policy makers on a regular basis in recent months….

Migration is depicted as a crime in order to manage it as a law and order issue,

whereby control and policing – and in this case, even military action – replace

assistance and provision of access to a fair asylum process.”324

O’Connell Davidson

writes European leaders have even portrayed asylum seeker boats arriving as akin to a

“modern slave trade” in order to justify punitive military action.325

Whether the Australian experience has served as an exemplar for the creation of the

new proposed European model is not known, and not argued here. The European

situation has a fundamental difference in that the EU represents not a single, national

government, but a supra-national body made up of sovereign states, each with its own

policies and political dynamics. However, the EU body does propose and promulgate

321

Ibid 322

Ibid 323

Ibid 324

Natalia Paszkiewicz, ‘The danger of conflating migrant smuggling with human trafficking’, Middle

East Eye (online) 2 June 2015 http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/danger-conflating-migrant-

smuggling-human-trafficking-1139692383#sthash.gndG6OaH.dpuf 325

Julia O’Connell Davidson, ‘Mediterranean migrants are not slaves – do not pervert history to justify

military action’ The Guardian (online) 17 May 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/17/mediterranean-migrants-slaves-history-

military-action-eu-leaders-libya

74

policy ‘for Europe’, and can be seen as acting as representative of its member states.

The similarities and divergences are not discussed here, this paper simply notes the

significant rhetorical similarities, and the establishment of an identical linguistic

framework for discussion of asylum issues that that language provides.

European authorities have recognised the power of government and media narratives

in shaping public views about asylum seekers. The European Council Parliamentary

Assembly, in its report, The image of asylum-seekers, migrants and refugees in the

media, argues responsibility for accurate and impartial representation of asylum

seekers in public discourse lies with both “media professionals and with governments

and politicians who use the media for political purposes”.326

The media… play an instrumental role in reporting what

politicians or government officials have said, and therefore

are encouraged to avoid recourse to sensationalism or

distorting inflammatory political discourse... [but] the

media do not operate in a political vacuum, and

governments and opposition parties have a major role to

play in contributing to an accurate and fair reporting on

migrants’ issues.327

The European parliament warned against pejorative language in 2009, calling on “the

EU institutions and member states to stop using the term ‘illegal immigrants’ which

has very negative connotations, and instead… refer to ‘irregular/undocumented

workers/migrants”.328

The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia

Malmstrom, argued again a year later: “let me be clear about my vocabulary too:

illegal migrants do not exist. People may come to the EU and might be required to use

irregular ways… but no human being is illegal.”329

326

Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe, ‘The image of asylum-seekers, migrants and refugees

in the media’ Report by the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population Doc 11011 10 July

2006

http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/XrefViewHTML.asp?FileID=6751&Language=EN#P309_48732 327

Ibid 328

European Parliament, General Assembly ‘Resolution on the situation of fundamental rights in the

European Union 20014-2008’, European Parliament, 2007/2145(INI)), 14 January 2009

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A6-2008-

0479&language=HR 329

Cecilia Malmstrom, ‘The future of migration: building capacity for change’ (Speech delivered at

International Organisation for Migration Council, Geneva, 29 November 2010)

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-10-699_en.htm?locale=en

http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/XrefViewHTML.asp?FileID=6751&Language=EN#P309_48732

75

Despite this counsel, exclusionary language remains prevalent in political and media

discourse in Europe. In Italy, where most boat-borne asylum seekers arrive, those

people are regularly referred to as illegal, ‘clandestino’ (clandestine) or

‘extracommunitari’ (non-EU).330

Analysing the coverage of immigration issues by

both the quality and tabloid press in three European countries, Jacomella argues

“every newspaper seems to fall prey, at various degrees, to the temptation of inflating

news and portraying the sensationalistic, simplified version of the story. The readers

are therefore presented with a coverage that kicks off with strong negative messages,

and an identification of the “migrant issue” with disturbing concepts such as

emergency, segregation, and cultural differences”.331

330

Ibid 331

Gabriella Jacomella, ‘Media and Migrations: Press narratives and country politics in three European

countries’, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford 2010

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Media%20and%20migrations%20Press%20n

arrative%20and%20country%20politics%20in%20three%20European%20countries.pdf

76

8. A responsibility to question

Despite seismic upheaval in the media landscape, and the massive diffusion of

information sources brought about by the digital age, traditional media still wield

significant power in shaping and directing public debate. Sometimes this is

overstated: the media do not tell people what to think. But media is manifestly

influential in telling people what to think about, and allied to this, possess a powerful

ability to influence the public on how to think about an issue. The media play a crucial

role in ‘framing’ public discourse: whether someone is an “asylum seeker” or an

illegal “queue jumper”,332

a “deserving”333

refugee who has come through the front

door of resettlement or an illegitimate “economic migrant”334

who came through the

back by boarding a boat. These terms, these constructions, establish the parameters of

Australia’s debate on asylum, they define the fundamental nature of the people within

it, and they limit how readers and viewers can conceive of, and understand, the issue.

With great power comes great responsibility. The role and responsibility of the media

runs beyond a simple meeting of market demand: journalism plays a critical

democratic role, possessed of a responsibility to its audience as citizens, voters,

members of a public sphere and participants in social discourse.335

Journalists

reporting on issues of asylum should not report uncritically the assumptions and

narratives that are currently popular with publics, or with which they are presented by

those in authority. Too often, this is so. Keski-Nummi argues the media’s role has

been central in establishing the language of government rhetoric within broader public

consciousness. “I feel that the media has almost always just adopted the language of

the government. It adopted the language of the ‘we will break the people-smuggling

model’ of the Rudd government, it adopted the language of ‘stop the boats’ and

332

Nicholson Above n 9 333

Lisa Cox, ‘‘Nope, nope, nope’: Tony Abbott says Australia will not resettle refugees in migrant

crisis’ The Sydney Morning Herald (online) 21 May 2015 http://www.smh.com.au/federal-

politics/political-news/nope-nope-nope-tony-abbott-says-australia-will-not-resettle-refugees-in-

migrant-crisis-20150521-gh6eew.html 334

David Crowe, ‘Most Manus Island detainees are economic migrants: Abbott’, The Australian

(online) 22 March 2014 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/most-manus-

island-detainees-are-economic-migrants-abbott/story-fn9hm1gu-1226862040264 335

Jane Mummery and Debbie Rodan, (2007) 'Discursive Australia: refugees, Australianness, and the

Australian public sphere' (2007) 21(3) Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 347-360

77

‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, without actually questioning what was meant by that,

without actually looking at what ministers are actually saying when they say that.”336

Journalism certainly has a responsibility to objectivity, to accuracy, and to

impartiality.337

These are shibboleths rightly held sacrosanct by the profession. And in

presenting all sides of a story or issue, journalists must, of course, report the

perspective of government, and the comments of those making executive decisions.

But it cannot report only those views, or report them without interrogation.

Journalism has a responsibility, too, to question, to challenge those in authority, and

to defy orthodoxy and groupthink. Reporters should resist pressure – subtle or overt –

to uncritically accept the established tropes of those in power. Chiefs of staff should

consider additional training for reporters so they are familiar with the legal terms used

in reporting asylum issues and aware of the broader global context of the Australian

debate. Editors should question whether their organisation’s portrayal of issues, or of

certain groups of people, are accurate representations, or loaded constructions

designed to promote a particular understanding or policy.

The Australian media is fiercely free, and proudly so. No news organisation in a

liberal democracy such as Australia would accept any level of overt government

control over the content of its reportage. Editors and media owners would furiously,

and rightly, resist being obliged to unquestioningly promote the ideals and policies of

government. But nor should Australian journalism accept more subtle attempts to

influence the limits and tone of its work, efforts to co-opt it to government cause by

stealth. Australian journalism should hold to account ministers who categorically

describe all boat arrivals as “illegals” or “economic migrants” before their claims for

asylum have been judged; it should noisily resist government attempts to limit

information about what it is doing to people under the secretive shroud of ‘on-water

operations’; and it should protest against restrictions on reporting on detention

centres. Democratic governments act in the name of, and on behalf of, their

populations. They are answerable to them.

336

Interview with Arja Keski-Nummi (By Skype, 25 May 2015) 337

Bill Keller and Glenn Greenwald, ‘Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News?’ The New York Times

(online) 27 October 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-

column.html

78

There exist already clear and commendable examples of efforts by international

media organisations to consider, and to modify, the language used in reporting of

asylum issues. In 2013, the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times in the United

States announced they would no longer use the phrase “illegal immigrant” to describe

a migrant in that country without a valid visa.338

In the same year, The New York

Times, after protests outside its Manhattan newsroom, adopted a similar approach:

while not prohibiting the use of the descriptor “illegal immigrant”, it encouraged

reporters and editors to “consider alternatives”.339

But to posit that the flow of narratives runs only one way – from governments to

media to publics – is overly simplistic. It, at once, discredits the media and absolves

it. The media is not simply some passive acceptor of government rhetoric, an

unthinking vehicle for the promulgation of the authority view. Rather, the media is an

active participant in the creation of narratives around asylum seekers. It chooses

which to accept and which to discard, which to amplify and which to diminish. Too,

media have their own editorial – some would argue political340

– ‘positions’ on many

issues, including, and perhaps particularly, on asylum. Media are also influenced by

their audiences, which provide feedback in various ways: through circulation figures

or viewer numbers, through letters to the editors, phone calls or online comments.

So, the exchange of language and narratives is not linear, but rather a complex – and

often unpredictable – ‘feedback loop’ between the polity, the media, and the public.

Each impacts upon the other: government language influences media reportage which

colours public perception. But public opinion can push governments to positions it

might otherwise not have considered necessary or appropriate. Conversely,

governments might exploit or amplify fears and concerns held by its electorate for

political advantage. And while the media has a role as a conduit between the two, it

also has its own agency, an independent ability to shape and direct the debate. The

media’s position as an institution of democracy is significant, and its role in the

338

Adam Clark Estes, ‘L.A. Times ban on ‘Illegal Immigrant’ Puts Everybody Else on the Spot’, The

Wire (online) 1 May 2013 http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/05/new-la-times-ban-illegal-

immigrant-puts-everybody-else-spot/64795/ 339

‘The Times shifts on ‘illegal immigrant’ but doesn’t ban the use’, The New York Times (online), 23

April 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/business/media/the-times-shifts-on-illegal-immigrant-

but-doesnt-ban-the-use.html?_r=0 340

Ibid

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/business/media/the-times-shifts-on-%09illegal-immigrant-but-doesnt-ban-the-use.html?_r=0


79

formation and promulgation of public discourse is crucial. These are weighty

responsibilities.

80

9. Conclusion

Language is important. Words matter. George Orwell argued the importance of

semantics in shaping ideas, in establishing patterns of thought, and in creating

orthodoxies. He recognised too, the difficulty in changing established narratives once

entrenched. “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad

usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do

know better.”341

The semantics of asylum in government, media and public discourses in Australia

have changed dramatically over the four decades since the first post-colonial vessels

arrived on the country’s shoreline. The language has become intensely oppositional

and hostile. Deliberately-constructed narratives have established that asylum seekers

arriving by boat are acting illegally, are jumping a queue ahead of more deserving

refugees, are linked to terrorism, or are a threat to Australia’s national security and

social cohesion. That change in language has occurred in concert with a steady,

though not linear, hardening of policies, designed to deter arrivals: the introduction of

boat turn-backs, mandatory detention, offshore processing, and regional resettlement.

And that change in language, led by government but reproduced and amplified by

media, has been influential in shaping Australian public opinion on asylum seekers.

The semantic shift has not been accidental. Nor has it been a minor corollary of the

changes in government policy. Rather, the language has been a deliberate and integral

part of the policies themselves. The alteration of rhetoric around asylum seekers has

been designed to change public understanding of the issue of asylum and of the

people arriving by boat themselves. The rhetorical constructions have allowed – and,

as has been argued in this paper, in some cases compelled – successive governments

to enact more and more punitive regimes against boat arrivals. Language is a key

element of prosecution and of reinforcement for policy. At a fundamental level, the

language is the policy.

341

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (Penguin, first published 1945, 2013 ed) 16

81

To paraphrase Orwell, Australian journalism should and does know better. But too

readily, Australian journalism has accepted this change in language unquestioningly

or with too little resistance. Journalism’s role as a public service is diminished when it

is captive to the rhetoric of any side in a debate.

The issue of mass irregular migration – of people seeking sanctuary in a country not

their own – will be one of the planet’s great challenges of the 21st Century. Already,

more people are currently displaced from their homes that at almost any time in

human history, and continued political instability, widespread poverty, and climate

disruption insist the issue will grow rather than diminish.342

Discussion of asylum

seekers is discussion of some of the most vulnerable, disenfranchised, and voiceless

communities on earth. Governments should speak dispassionately when they discuss

the policies and politics of asylum seekers. The media should report critically,

objectively, and factually. Their publics, whom they both exist to serve, will be better

served for it.

342

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘Worldwide displacement hits all-time high as

war and persecution increase (Press Release, online, 18 June 2015)

http://www.unhcr.org/558193896.html

82

Bibliography

Press conference with Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia (Melbourne, 8

November 2013) https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2013-11-08/press-conference-

melbourne

Age (The)

‘Minister gets tough on boat people’ The Age (Melbourne), 21 January 1992 1

Agence France Presse ‘Operation to stop boats like a war: Tony Abbott’ The

Australian (online) 10 January 2014 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-

affairs/immigration/operation-to-stop-boats-like-a-war-tony-abbott/story-fn9hm1gu-

1226798801617

Alexander, Lucy, ‘“Floating Coffins” boat people battle to the death for food and

water’ The Times (online), 17 May 2015

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article4442916.ece

Allard, Tom, ‘Cooking up Howard’s knockout punch’ The Sydney Morning Herald

(Sydney) 16 November 2001 9

Associated Press, ‘Australia captures another boatload of illegal arrivals’, 18

November 1999

Atkins, Dennis, ‘PM links terror to asylum seekers’, The Courier Mail (Brisbane), 7

November 2001

Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 1976)

Australia. Commonwealth Record (Canberra, 1977)

Australian, (The)

Editorial, ‘PM’s refugee bungling defies reason and decency’, The Australian

(Australia), 30 August 2001 10

Australian Broadcasting Corporation News, ‘157 Tamil asylum seekers sent from

Curtin detention centre to Nauru’ ABC News (online) 2 August 2014


Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Southeast Asian migrant crisis: timeline of key

events’, ABC News (online) 29 May 2015 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-

28/timeline-south-east-asia-migrant-crisis/6498794

Australian Electoral Commission, 2001 Federal Election (15 January 2013) AEC


Betts, Katharine, ‘Boatpeople and public opinion in Australia’, (2001) 9(4) People

and Place 34-48





83

Morgan Gallup Poll, cited in Betts, Katharine, ‘Boatpeople and Public

Opinion in Australia’ (2001) 9(4) People and Place 34-48

Betts, Katharine, ‘Immigration and public opinion: understanding the shift’, (2002)

10(4) People and Place 24–37

Bernays, Edward, ‘The Engineering of Consent’, (1947) 250 Annals of the American

Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 250 Mar 1947 113-120

Bloom, Dan, ‘Italian minister blasts “short-sighted” Theresa May after she vows to

force Mediterranean migrants home’, The Mirror (online) 13 May 2015

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mediterranean-short-sighted-theresa-may-

5689008

Border Protection Legislation Amendment Bill 1999 (Commonwealth of Australia)


Bosso, Diana ‘The whistle we all heard: conceptualization of the ‘dog-whistle’ in

politics and journalism’, (Research Paper for the Annual Conference of the Cultural

Studies Association of Australia, 8 December 2007)

Browning, Christopher R., and Jurgen Matthaus, The Origins of the Final Solution:

The evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 Random House:

Germany, 2006)

Interview with Julian Burnside, (Melbourne, Australia, 5 March 2015)

Cameron, David, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, speech 14 April 2011 as

reported by BBC News (online) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13083781

Canberra Times (The)

‘50 Vietnamese boat people arrive in WA’ The Canberra Times (Canberra),

11 November 1979

‘ANOTHER BOAT ARRIVES MacKellar denies refugee ‘armada’ The

Canberra Times (Canberra) 28 Nov 1977 1

‘Crackdown on boat people, illegal entry’, The Canberra Times (Canberra), 13

February 1992

‘Hand warns “illegals” to go home’ The Canberra Times (Canberra) 26

February 1991

‘Illegals start Port Headland hunger strike’, The Canberra Times (Canberra),

10 March 1992

‘MacKellar defends refugee policies’, The Canberra Times (Canberra) 24

September 1979

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mediterranean-short-sighted-theresa-may-5689008

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mediterranean-short-sighted-theresa-may-5689008


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13083781

84

‘Refugees detention illegal: lawyers’ The Canberra Times (Canberra) 15 April

1992 5

‘S. Vietnamese refugees arrive in Darwin’, The Canberra Times (Canberra) 29

April 1976

‘Vietnamese refugees arrive in Darwin’, The Canberra Times (Canberra) 29

April 1976 10

Capital Hill Advisory, ‘Border Protection Policy Round-up’, Capital Hill Advisory

(online) 27 August 2013 http://capitalhilladvisory.com.au/border-protection/

Carson, Vanda, Natalie O’Brien & Megan Saunders, ‘The human face of our rising

tide of refugees’, The Australian (Australia), 24 August 2001 1

Carney, Shaun, ‘Asia-Australia Divide is still wide’ The Age (Melbourne), 11 October

1993 1

Cheema, G. Shabbir, and Linda Maguire, ‘Democracy, Governance and

Development: A Conceptual Framework’ (Background Paper for the 4th

Global

Forum on Reinventing Government, Morocco, 10 December 2002)


Chomsky, Noam, The Way the World Works (Soft Skull Press, 2013)

Clark, C.M.H., A History of Australia (Cambridge University Press: London, 1962)

Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 5 May 1992,

2370 (Gerry Hand)

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=cust

omrank;page=0;query=designed%20to%20address%20only%20the%20pressing%20r

equirements%20of%20the%20current%20situation%20Date%3A01%2F01%2F1992

%20%3E%3E%2005%2F05%2F1993%20Dataset%3Ahansardr,hansardr80;rec=1;res

Count=Default

Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Immigration and Border Protection,

‘Indonesia as a transit country in irregular migration to Australia, September 2014,

Irregular Migration Research Programme (Occasional Paper Series)


Commonwealth of Australia, ‘European discovery and the colonisation of Australia’

Australia.gov.au (online) 31 March 2015 http://www.australia.gov.au/about-

australia/australian-story/european-discovery-and-colonisation

Commonwealth of Australia, Operation Sovereign Borders, ‘Operation Sovereign

Borders Organisational Chart’, Australian Department of Immigration and Border

Protection, June 2014


http://capitalhilladvisory.com.au/border-protection/








http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/european-discovery-and-colonisation

http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/european-discovery-and-colonisation


85

Commonwealth of Australia, The 1979 Cabinet Records (National Archives of

Australia, 1979) available from

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/byyear/cabinet-records-1979.aspx

Commonwealth of Australia, ‘What’s in a name?’, Department of Immigration and

Border Protection (online) 13 February 2015


Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, opened for signature 28 July 1951, 189

UNTS 150, (entered into force 22 April 1954)

Cox, Lisa, ‘‘Nope, nope, nope’: Tony Abbott says Australia will not resettle refugees

in migrant crisis’ The Sydney Morning Herald (online) 21 May 2015

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/nope-nope-nope-tony-abbott-

says-australia-will-not-resettle-refugees-in-migrant-crisis-20150521-gh6eew.html

Cox, Lisa, ‘Tony Abbott: Australians sick of being lied to by United Nations’ The

Sydney Morning Herald (online) 10 March 2015 http://www.smh.com.au/federal-

politics/political-news/tony-abbott-australians-sick-of-being-lectured-to-by-united-

nations-after-report-finds-antitorture-breach-20150309-13z3j0.html

Crisp, Jeff, ‘Australia and Europe, Failing the world’s refugees’ Asylum Insight

(online) 5 June 2015 http://www.asyluminsight.com/jeff-crisp#.VXFm32Sqqkp

Mary Crock, Ben Saul and Azadeh Dastyari, Future Seekers II: Refugees and

Irregular Migration in Australia (Federation Press, 2006)

Crock, Mary, quoted in ‘Humane or Tough: a response to asylum seeker arrivals in

Australia’ Rear Vision, ABC Radio National, 20 October 2010

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/humane-or-tough-a-

response-to-asylum-seeker/2960064

Crock, Mary, ‘Judging refugees: the clash of power and institutions in the

development of Australian refugee law’ (2004) 26(1) Sydney Law Review

Crowe, David, ‘Most Manus Island detainees are economic migrants: Abbott’, The

Australian (online) 22 March 2014 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-

affairs/immigration/most-manus-island-detainees-are-economic-migrants-

abbott/story-fn9hm1gu-1226862040264

Interview with Department of Immigration and Border Protection Communications

Officers (anonymous) (Interview by email, 8 June 2015)

Doherty, Ben, ‘Manus Island: video footage emerges of guards rushing protest

compound’ The Guardian (online) 20 January 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jan/20/manus-island-video-footage-

emerges-of-riot-police-rushing-protest-compound

Dorey, Fran, ‘The spread of people to Australia’ Australian Museum (online) 26 May

2011 http://australianmuseum.net.au/the-spread-of-people-to-australia

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/byyear/cabinet-records-1979.aspx





http://www.asyluminsight.com/jeff-crisp#.VXFm32Sqqkp



http://australianmuseum.net.au/the-spread-of-people-to-australia

86

Dupont, Alan, East Asia Imperilled, Transnational Challenges to Security

(Cambridge University Press, 2001)

Dutton, Peter, ‘Australian Border Force one step closer’ (Ministerial media release,

14 May 2015) http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/peterdutton/2015/Pages/Australian-

Border-Force-one-step-closer.aspx

Economist, (The)

‘Italy’s illegal immigrations tidal wave’ The Economist (online) 5 July 2014

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21606301-more-horrific-deaths-

mediterranean-tidal-wave

Espenshade, Thomas, and Maryanne Belanger, ‘Immigration and Public Opinion’ in

Marcelo Suarez-Orozco (ed), Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary

Perspectives (Cambridge, Mass.: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American

Studies and Harvard University Press, 1998)

EU Business ‘The Mediterranean: key route for EU-bound migrants’ EU

Business.com (online) 28 April 2015 http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/europe-

migrants.10vk/

Council of Europe.

Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe, ‘The image of asylum-seekers,

migrants and refugees in the media’ Report by the Committee on Migration,

Refugees and Population Doc 11011 10 July 2006

http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/XrefViewHTML.asp?FileID=6751&Langua

ge=EN#P309_48732

Council of the European Union

European External Action Service ‘Military Advice on the ‘draft crisis

management concept for a possible CSDP operation to disrupt human

smuggling networks in the southern and central Mediterranean’ Council of the

European Union (online via Wikileaks) 12 May 2015 https://wikileaks.org/eu-

military-refugees/EUMC

European Parliament

European Parliament, General Assembly ‘Resolution on the situation of

fundamental rights in the European Union 20014-2008’, European Parliament,

2007/2145(INI)), 14 January 2009

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A

6-2008-0479&language=HR

Estes, Adam Clark, ‘L.A. Times ban on ‘Illegal Immigrant’ Puts Everybody Else on

the Spot’, The Wire (online) 1 May 2013

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21606301-more-horrific-deaths-mediterranean-tidal-

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21606301-more-horrific-deaths-mediterranean-tidal-





https://wikileaks.org/eu-military-

https://wikileaks.org/eu-military-



87

http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/05/new-la-times-ban-illegal-immigrant-puts-

everybody-else-spot/64795/

Interview with Chris Evans, former minister for immigration (By Skype 16 June

2015)

Ewart, Heather, ‘How do asylum seekers feel about prospect of TPV return’ 7:30

Report (online) 4 September 2013 www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3841335.htm

Express Tribune (The)

Editorial ‘Expelling Afghan refugees’, The Express Tribune (online) 23

December 2014 http://tribune.com.pk/story/810763/expelling-afghan-

refugees/

Fagge, Nick, ‘Cameron must come and tell them UK is no El Dorado says Calais

mayor as she repeats threat to block port to make Britain change its policy’, Mail

Online (online), 4 September 2014 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-

2744227/Cameron-come-tell-UK-no-El-Dorado-says-Calais-mayor-repeats-threat-

block-port-make-Britain-change-policy.html

Faulkner, Neil, ‘The Official Truth: Propaganda in the Roman Empire’, BBC History

(online) 17 February 2012

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/romanpropaganda_article_01.shtml

Farrell, Paul, ‘Asylum seekers registered with UNHCR in Indonesia blocked from

resettlement’, The Guardian (online), 18 November 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/18/asylum-seekers-registered-

with-unhcr-in-indonesia-blocked-from-resettlement

Fernandes, Edna, ‘LibDems accuse Labour, Tories in race row’ Reuters (online) 10

April 2000

Foucault, Michel, ‘The Order of Discourse’ in P. Rice & P. Waugh (eds.), Modern

Literary Theory: A Reader (Arnold, London, 4th

ed, 2001)

Gale, Peter, The Politics Of Fear: Lighting The Wik (Pearson Education Australia,

Sydney, 2005)

Garnier, Adele and Adrian Cox, ‘Twenty years of mandatory detention: the anatomy

of a failed policy’ (Paper presented at Australian Political Studies Australian

Conference, Hobart, September 2012)

http://www.auspsa.org.au/sites/default/files/twenty_years_of_mandatory_detention_a

dele_garnier_and_lloyd_cox.pdf

Garran, Robert, Vanda Carson & Tracy Sutherland, ‘Cargo of human misery’, The

Australian (Australia), 29 August 2001 1

Press conference with Julia Gillard, Prime Minister, and Chris Bowen, immigration

http://tribune.com.pk/story/810763/expelling-afghan-refugees/

http://tribune.com.pk/story/810763/expelling-afghan-refugees/




http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/romanpropaganda_article_01.shtml

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/18/asylum-seekers-registered-with-unhcr-in-indonesia-blocked-from-resettlement

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/18/asylum-seekers-registered-with-unhcr-in-indonesia-blocked-from-resettlement

http://www.auspsa.org.au/sites/default/files/twenty_years_of_mandatory_detention_adele_garnier_and_lloyd_cox.pdf

http://www.auspsa.org.au/sites/default/files/twenty_years_of_mandatory_detention_adele_garnier_and_lloyd_cox.pdf

88

minister, ‘Asylum seekers; Malaysia agreement; Commonwealth Ombudsman (Press

conference transcript, Canberra, 13 October 2011)

Goodwin-Gill, Guy, University of Oxford, Bodleian Social Science Library, Refugee

Studies Centre Collection, Goodwin-Gill Collection, AUL: Reports

- monthly reports for the UNHCR Sydney Branch Office from

November 1978 to April 1983

- end of year reports from the UNCHR Sydney Branch Office to the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, from 1978 to 1982


Studies Centre Collection, Guy Goodwin-Gill Collection, ‘Report for 1977’, End of

year report from UNHCR Sydney Branch to United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees


Studies Centre Collection, Guy Goodwin-Gill Collection, ‘Report for 1978’, End of

year report from UNHCR Sydney Branch to United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees

Gordon, Michael, ‘Tampa Gives PM refuge from sinking poll hopes’ The Age

(Melbourne) 4 September 2001 4

Grant, Bruce, The Boatpeople: ‘An Age’ Investigation (Ringwood, 1979)

Gray, Darren, ‘WA illegals in copycat breakouts’ The Age (Melbourne), 10 June 2000

Haigh, Bruce, ‘Australia’s asylum seeker obsessions puts democracy at risk’ The

Guardian (online) 9 May 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/09/australias-asylum-seeker-

obsession-puts-democracy-at-risk

Hall, Bianca, ‘Minister wants boat people called illegals’ The Sydney Morning Herald

(online), 19 October 2013 http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-

news/minister-wants-boat-people-called-illegals-20131019-2vtl0.html

Hand, Gerry, quoted in ABC TV 7:30 Report 12 February 1992

Hand, Gerry, quoted in Mike Taylor, ‘Boat people not refugees: Hand’ The Canberra

Times 11 November 1992

Hay, C., ‘Narrating Crisis: The Discursive Construction of the Winter of Discontent’,

Sociology (1996) 30(2) 253–277

Healey, Ruth L., ‘Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A structuration theory analysis of

their experiences’, (2006) 12 Population Space and Place 257-271

Henderson, Gerard, ‘Terrorists don’t come via detention centres’ The Age (online) 19

November 2002 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/18/1037599359073.html



89

Henderson, Ian, et al ‘Boat Children overboard – Howard hard line becomes poll

focus’ The Australian (Australia) 8 October 2001

Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: the political

economy of the mass media (Bodley Head, first published 1988, 2008 edition)

Hickman, Belinda, ‘A leaking boat’s cargo of humanity’, The Australian (Australia),

17 August 2001

Higgins, Claire, New evidence on the development of Australian refugee policy, 1976

to 1983 (2013) DPhil, University of Oxford

Hoskin, M. and Mishler, W., ‘Public Opinion toward New Migrants: A

Comparative’ International Migration (1983) 21(4) 440–462

House of Commons (United Kingdom) Deb (1995-1996) 20 November 1995 vol 267

cc335-48 (Michael Howard)

Howard, John, Prime Minister of Australia, ‘Address at the Federal Liberal Party

campaign launch’, (Speech delivered at Liberal Party campaign launch, Sydney, 29

October 2001)

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query%3DId%3A%22l

ibrary%2Fpartypol%2F1178395%22

Jacomella, Gabriella, ‘Media and Migrations: Press narratives and country politics in

three European countries’ Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of

Oxford 2010

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Media%20and%20migration

s%20Press%20narrative%20and%20country%20politics%20in%20three%20Europea

n%20countries.pdf

Jowett, Garth, and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion (Sage: London,

2006)

Keller, Bill, and Glenn Greenwald, ‘Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News?’ The

New York Times (online) 27 October 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html

Kelly, Paul, ‘REFUGEE CRISIS’, The Australian (Australia), 30 August 2001 1

Kelly, Paul, The March of Patriots: The Struggle for Modern Australia (Melbourne

University, 2011)

Interview with Arja Keski-Nummi (By Skype, 25 May 2015)

Khoser, Khalid, ‘Smash all you want; it won’t stop the people smugglers’, The Drum,

ABC online, 3 November 2011 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-04/koser-smash-

all-you-want-it-wont-deter-the-people-smugglers/3625768

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query%3DId%3A%22library%2Fpartypol%2F1178395%22

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query%3DId%3A%22library%2Fpartypol%2F1178395%22



90

Kingsley, Patrick, et al., ‘700 migrants feared dead in Mediterranean shipwreck’, The

Guardian (online) 19 April 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/19/700-migrants-feared-dead-

mediterranean-shipwreck-worst-yet

Kingston, Margo, ‘Immigration switch on boat people’ The Canberra Times

(Canberra) 22 January 1994

Kingston, Margo, ‘Politics and Public Opinion’ in Mary Crock (ed), Protection or

Punishment: The detention of asylum seekers in Australia (Federation Press: Sydney,

1993)

Kingston, Margo, ‘Credibility overboard’, The Sydney Morning Herald (online), 8

November 2001, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/26/1069825828659.html

Klocker, N., & K.M. Dunn, ‘Who's driving the asylum debate? Newspaper and

government representations of asylum seekers’ (2003) 109 Media International

Australia 71-92

Kushner, Tony, ‘Meaning Nothing but Good: Ethics, History and Asylum-Seeker

Phobia in Britain’, Patterns in Prejudice, (2003) 37(3)

Interview with Greg Lake (By Skype, 7 May 2015)

Laughland, Oliver, ‘PNG not allowing witnesses to Reza Berati’s death to leave

Manus Island’ The Guardian (online) 21 July 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/png-reza-baratis-witnesses-to-leave-

manus

Lawson, Damien, ‘Refugee! Criminal! Terrorist!’ New Internationalist 1 October

2002 http://newint.org/features/2002/10/01/criminalization/

Leatherman, Janine, Discipline and Punishment in Global Politics (Palgrave

Macmillan, London, 2008)

Lynn, N and Lea, S., ‘A phantom menace and the new Apartheid: the social

construction of asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom’, Discourse and Society

(2003) 14(4) 425-452


http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/lowy-institute-poll-2013

‘Lowy Institute 2011 Poll’ The Lowy Institute (2011) 14-15

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/files/pubfiles/Lowy_Poll_2011_WEB.pdf

MacCallum, Mungo, ‘Asylum seekers and the language of war’, The Drum (online)

14 January 2014 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-13/maccallum-operation-

sovereign-borders/5196708







http://newint.org/features/2002/10/01/criminalization/

91

MacDonald, Janine, ‘Refugee crisis warning’ The Age (Melbourne), 18 November

1999

Machiavelli, Niccolo, The Prince (first published 1532, Oxford University, 1935 ed)

Macphee, Ian, Interview with Ian Macphee, former minister for immigration (1979-

1982) (By email, April 8, 2015)

Malmstrom, Cecilia, ‘The future of migration: building capacity for change’ (Speech

delivered at International Organisation for Migration Council, Geneva, 29 November

2010) http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-10-699_en.htm?locale=en

Manne, Robert, ‘Australia’s Shipwrecked Refugee Policy: tragedy of errors’ The

Monthly (online) March 2013 https://www.themonthly.com.au/australia-s-

shipwrecked-refugee-policy-tragedy-errors-guest-7637

Manne, Robert, Left, Right, Left: Political Essays 1977-2005 (Black Ink, 2004)

Mares, Peter, Borderline: Australia’s response to refugees and asylum seekers in the

wake of the Tampa (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2nd

ed, 2002)

Mares, Peter, ‘Reporting Australia’s asylum seeker ‘crisis’ (Conference paper) Media,

Terrorism and a culture of peace. 5 July 2002

http://apo.org.au/commentary/reporting-australias-asylum-seeker-crisis

Markus, A., ‘Mapping Social Cohesion National Report 2013’ The Scanlon

Foundation Surveys http://monash.edu/mapping-population/public-

opinion/surveys/scanlon-foundation-surveys/mapping-social-cohesion-national-

report-2013.pdf

Markus, A., ‘Fact Sheet 4: Asylum seekers’ Scanlon Foundation Social Cohesion

(Research Program, Monash University) http://monash.edu/mapping-

population/public-opinion/fact-sheets/asylum-seekers-fact-sheet.pdf

Marr, David, and Marian Wilkinson, Dark Victory (Allen and Unwin, 2003)

Marr, David, and Marian Wilkinson, ‘Going Overboard’ The Sydney Morning Herald

(Sydney) 10 November 2001 27

Marr, David, ‘ASIO’s indefinite detention beyond reason or doubt’, The Saturday

Paper (online), 23 August 2014

http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2014/08/23/asios-indefinite-

detention-beyond-reason-or-doubt/1408716000#.VVS1HNqqqko

Marr, David Panic (Black Inc, 2nd

ed, 2013)

Matthew, Penelope, Reworking the relationship between asylum and employment

(Routledge, 2012)

https://www.themonthly.com.au/australia-s-shipwrecked-refugee-policy-tragedy-errors-guest-7637

https://www.themonthly.com.au/australia-s-shipwrecked-refugee-policy-tragedy-errors-guest-7637

http://monash.edu/mapping-population/public-opinion/surveys/scanlon-foundation-surveys/mapping-social-cohesion-national-report-2013.pdf





92

May, Theresa, Home Secretary of the UK, ‘EU is putting migrants at risk’, The Times

(online) 13 May 2015,

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/thunderer/article4438589.ece

Mazrui, Ali Al’Amin, Cultural Forces in World Politics (James Currey, 1990)

McAdam, Jane, ‘Are they illegals, no? And Scott Morrison should know better’,

University of New South Wales Newsroom (online), 23 October 2013

http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/law/are-they-illegals-no-and-scott-morrison-

should-know-better

McKay, Fiona H., Samantha Thomas and Susan Kneebone, ‘“It Would be Okay If

They Came through the Proper Channels”: Community Perceptions and Attitudes

toward Asylum Seekers in Australia’, 2012, 25(1) Journal of Refugee Studies 113-

133

McKay, F.H., and S.L. Thomas, R.W. Blood, ‘ “Any One of these Boatpeople could

be a Terrorist for All We Know!”, Media Representations and Public Perceptions of

“Boat People” Arrivals in Australia’ (2011) 12(6) Journalism: Theory, Practice and

Criticism

McHugh-Dillon, Harriet, ‘If they are genuine refugees, why? Public attitudes to

unauthorized arrivals in Australia’, Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture

(Occasional papers) April 2015

McKenzie, Jaffa, and Reza Hasmath, ‘Deterring the “boat people”: Explaining the

Australian government’s People Swap response to asylum seekers’ (2013) 48(4)

Australian Journal of Political Science 417-430

McMaster, Don, ‘White Australia to Tampa: The politics of fear’ (2002) 21 Dialogue

3-9

Interview with John Menadue, former secretary of department of immigration and

ethnic affairs (By Skype, 4 May 2015)

Menadue, J., A. Keski-Nummi and K. Gauthier ‘A new approach–breaking the

stalemate on asylum seekers and refugees’ (2011) Occasional paper 13 Centre for

Policy Development http://cpd.org.au/wp-

content/uploads/2011/08/cpd_refugee_report_2nd-run-WEB-VERSION3.pdf

Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford (The), Migration in the News:

portrayals of immigrants, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in British

newspapers, 2010-2012 Migration Observatory Report, 8 August 2013

http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/migobs/Report%20-

%20migration%20in%20the%20news.pdf

Morrison, Scott, ‘We must act before more lives are lost’, Sunday Telegraph (Sydney)

19 December 2010 98



http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?frbrVersion=6&tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=TN_oxford10.1093%2fjrs%2ffer010&indx=1&recIds=TN_oxford10.1093%2fjrs%2ffer010&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=6&dscnt=0&scp.scps=scope%3A%28ELD%29%2Cprimo_central_multiple_fe&frbg=&tab=remote&dstmp=1430734273305&srt=rank&mode=Basic&&dum=true&tb=t&vl(353692470UI0)=any&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&vl(304942530UI1)=all_items&vl(freeText0)=McKay%20Thomas%20Kneebone&vid=OXVU1





93

Morrison, Scott, ‘Immigration – especially concerning persecuted Christians and the

flood of boat people’, Christian Democratic Party (online) August 2013

http://www.cdp.org.au/newsletter/august2013/Immigration%20Scott%20Morrison%2

0MP.pdf

Press conference with Scott Morrison, minister for immigration, and Lieutenant

General Angus Campbell, Australian Army (Sydney, 23 September 2013)

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/143035/20140402-

1303/www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/sm/2013/sm208387.htm

Mulakala, Anthea ‘Understanding the Australia-Malaysia Refugee Swap’, In Asia

(online) 24 August 2011, http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia/2011/08/24/understanding-

the-australia-malaysia-refugee-swap/

Mummery, Jane, and Debbie Rodan, (2007) 'Discursive Australia: refugees,

Australianness, and the Australian public sphere' (2007) 21(3) Continuum: Journal of

Media & Cultural Studies 347-360

Neumann, Klaus, ‘“Queue Jumpers” and the perils of crossing Sydney Harbour on a

Manly ferry’, Inside Story (online) 2 October 2014 http://insidestory.org.au/queue-

jumpers-and-the-perils-of-crossing-sydney-harbour-on-a-manly-ferry

News.com.au

‘Tony Abbott compares stopping asylum-seeker boats to war’ News.com.au,

10 January 2014 http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-compares-

stopping-asylumseeker-boats-to-war/story-fncynjr2-1226798726896

New York Times (The)

‘The Times shifts on ‘illegal immigrant’ but doesn’t ban the use’, The New

York Times (online), 23 April 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/business/media/the-times-shifts-on-

illegal-immigrant-but-doesnt-ban-the-use.html?_r=0

Ngwodo, Chris, ‘Cliches of civilisation’, African Hadithi (online) 31 December 2014


Nicholson, Brendan, ‘Abbott slams boatpeople as unchristian’ The Australian (online)

10 July 2012 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/abbott-

slams-boatpeople-as-un-christian/story-fn9hm1gu-1226422034305

O’Brien, Natalie, ‘Overboard incident ‘never happened’ The Australian (Australia) 7

November 2001

O’Connell Davidson, Julia, ‘Mediterranean migrants are not slaves – do not pervert

history to justify military action’ The Guardian (online) 17 May 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/17/mediterranean-migrants-

slaves-history-military-action-eu-leaders-libya

http://www.cdp.org.au/newsletter/august2013/Immigration%20Scott%20Morrison%20MP.pdf

http://www.cdp.org.au/newsletter/august2013/Immigration%20Scott%20Morrison%20MP.pdf

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/143035/20140402-1303/www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/sm/2013/sm208387.htm

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/143035/20140402-1303/www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/sm/2013/sm208387.htm



http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-compares-%09stopping-asylumseeker-boats-to-%09war/story-fncynjr2-1226798726896

http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-compares-%09stopping-asylumseeker-boats-to-%09war/story-fncynjr2-1226798726896






94

Orwell, George, Politics and the English Language (Penguin, first published 1945,

2013 ed)

Ostermeir, E., ‘When will Obama stop using the term illegal immigrant’, University

of Minnesota, Humphrey School of Public Affairs (online) 23 April 2013,

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2013/04/when_will_obama_stop_using_the

.php

Paszkiewicz, Natalia, ‘The danger of conflating migrant smuggling with human

trafficking’, Middle East Eye (online) 2 June 2015

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/danger-conflating-migrant-smuggling-human-

trafficking-1139692383#sthash.gndG6OaH.dpuf

Payack, Paul J.J., ‘How 9/11 changed the way we talk’ Global Language Monitor

(online) 2014 http://www.languagemonitor.com/911/how-911-changed-the-way-we-

talk/

Pedersen, A., J. Attwell, and D. Heveli, (2005) ‘Prediction of Negative Attitudes

toward Australian Asylum Seekers: False Beliefs, Nationalism, and Self-esteem’,

Australian Journal of Psychology (2005) 57(3) 148-160

Pedersen, A., S. Watt and S. Hanser,‘The role of false beliefs in the community’s and

the federal governments’ attitudes toward Australian asylum seekers’ (2006) 41(1)

Australian Journal of Social Issues

Phillips, Janet, ‘Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?’ (Research Paper,

Parliament of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services, Parliamentary

Library, 2 March 2015)

http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/bn/sp/asylumfacts.pdf

Phillips, Janet, ‘Boat arrivals in Australia: a quick guide to the statistics’ (Research

Paper, Parliament of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services, Parliamentary

Library, 23 January 2014)

http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary

_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/QG/BoatArrivals

Phillips, Janet, and Harriet Spinks, ‘Boat Arrivals in Australia since 1976’ (Research


Library, 23 July 2013)

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22libra

ry%2Fprspub%2F5P1X6%22

Phillips, Janet and Harriet Spinks ‘Immigration detention in Australia’ (Research


Library, 20 March 2013)

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/1311498/upload_binary/1

311498.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22library/prspub/1311498%22

Phillips, Melissa, ‘Working with the media: Notes for refugee advocates’ (2000) 8

Forced Migration Review

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2013/04/when_will_obama_stop_using_the.php

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2013/04/when_will_obama_stop_using_the.php

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/danger-conflating-migrant-smuggling-human-trafficking-1139692383#sthash.gndG6OaH.dpuf

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/danger-conflating-migrant-smuggling-human-trafficking-1139692383#sthash.gndG6OaH.dpuf







95

Pickering, Sharon, ‘Common Sense and Original Deviancy: News Discourses and

Asylum Seekers in Australia’ (2001) 14(2) Journal of Refugee Studies

Pickering, Sharon, ‘The Hard Press of Asylum’, 2000 1(8) Forced Migration Review

Piper, Margaret ‘Lack of charity in our treatment of refugees’ The Canberra Times

(Canberra) 11 November 1992

Poynder, Nick ‘A (Name Deleted) v Australia: A Milestone For Asylum Seekers’

[1997] AUJlHRights 21, (1997) 4(1) Australian Journal of Human Rights

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AJHR/1997/21.html

Republic of Nauru, Press Release, ‘Australian immigration minister delivers hardline

message on illegal boat arrivals’ 9 October 2014

http://www.naurugov.nr/government-information-office/media-release/australian-

immigration-minister-delivers-hardline-message-on-illegal-boat-arrivals.aspx

Robinson, W. Courtland, Terms of Refuge, (London: Zed Books, 1998)

Romano, Angela, ‘Journalism’s Role in mediating public conversation on asylum

seekers and refugees in Australia’ (2004) 26(2) Australian Journalism Review

Rudd, Kevin, Prime Minister of Australia, quoted in Emma Rodgers, ‘Rudd wants

people smugglers to “rot in hell”’ ABC News (online) 17 April 2009

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/17/2545748.htm

Rudd, Kevin, Prime Minister of Australia, quoted in ‘PM’, ABC Radio, 17 April 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2546098.htm

Rudd, Kevin, Prime Minister of Australia, quoted in ‘Rudd, SBY, agree to tackle

asylum seekers’ The World Today, ABC News (online), 10 March 10 2010


Ruddock, Phillip, immigration minister, quoted in Barrett, Rebecca, ‘Immigration

shakeup’ PM, ABC News (online) 27 April 2001


Rushefsky, Mark E., and Kant Patel, Politics, Power and Policy Making: The case of

health care reform in the 1990s (M.E. Sharpe, 1998)

Saunders, Keith, ‘A leaky boat to heartbreak’, The Australian (Australia), 28 August

2001

Schloenhardt, Andreas, quoted in Factcheck (online), ABC News, 24 January 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-24/tony-abbott-incorrect-on-asylum-seekers-

breaking-australian-law/5214802

Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident, Parliament of Australia,

Report of the Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident (2002)

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AJHR/1997/21.html





96

https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/maritime_incident_ctte/report/repo

rt.pdf

Shanahan, Dennis and Megan Saunders ‘Attitudes to boat people hardening’ The

Australian (Australia) 31 October 2001 11

Shanahan, Dennis, and Megan Saunders, ‘Poll backs PM’s stand – The Tampa crisis –

transfer to navy troop-carrier begins’ The Australian (Australia) 4 September 2001 1

Shepard, Masocha, Asylum seekers, social work, and racism (Palgrave Macmillan,

London, 2015)

Sheridan, Greg, ‘Inflammatory denial of human dignity’, The Australian, (Australia),

6 September 2001

Simon, A., and Jerit, J. ‘Toward a theory relation political discourse, media and public

opinion’ Journal of Communication (2007) 57 254-271

Smith, Evan, ‘Defining and demonizing asylum: a brief history of UK refugee

discourses’, A Hatful of History (online), 2 July 2013

https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/defining-and-demonising-asylum-

a-brief-history-of-uk-refugee-discourses/

Smyth, Jamie, ‘Australia’s “stop the boats” asylum policy divides opinion’, The

Financial Times (online) 6 November 2014 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/82225b4c-

6563-11e4-91b1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3fOBo2WtP

Squire, Vicki, ‘Accounting for the Dominance of Control: Inter-party dynamics and

restrictive asylum policy in contemporary Britain’ (2008) British Politics 241-261

Stokes, Jim, ‘1979 Cabinet Records: The Historical Context and Issues of Interest’,

National Archives, (2010) http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/by-

year/events-issues-1979.aspx

Sydney Morning Herald (The)

Editorial ‘Hawke jumps the queue’ The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 8

June 1990

Editorial, ‘Pain of one world’ The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) 14

September 2001 10

Taylor, Lenore, ‘Bob Carr’s comments foreshadow Labor asylum seeker

clampdown’, The Guardian (online), 28 June 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/28/rudd-government-asylum-seeker-

policy

Tapper, James, ‘Britain replaces migrant search and rescue ship with smaller vessel’,

The Guardian (online) 21 June 2015

https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/maritime_incident_ctte/report/report.pdf

https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/maritime_incident_ctte/report/report.pdf



http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/by-year/events-issues-1979.aspx

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/by-year/events-issues-1979.aspx

97

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/21/britain-replaces-migrant-search-and-

rescue-ship-with-smaller-naval-vessel

Taylor, Savitri, ‘The importance of human rights talk in asylum seeker advocacy’

(2001) 24(1) UNSW Law Journal

Taylor, Savitri, ‘Achieving reform of Australian asylum seeker law and policy’

(2001) 24 Just Policy

41-54

Travis, Alan, ‘Bogus asylum seekers make way for abuse’, The Guardian (London)

12 November 1998 4

Travis, Alan, ‘UK to continue migrant rescues despite planned Bulwark exit’, The

Guardian (online) 17 June 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/uk-

news/2015/jun/16/uk-continue-med-migrant-rescue-operation-hms-bulwark

Turoy-Smith, K., R. Kane, and A. Pederson, ‘The willingness of a society to act on

behalf of Indigenous Australians and refugees: the role of contact, intergroup anxiety,

prejudice, and support for legislative change’ (2013) 43(2) Journal of Applied

Psychology

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘Worldwide displacement hits all-

time high as war and persecution increase (Press Release, online, 18 June 2015)

http://www.unhcr.org/558193896.html

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘Asylum Seekers’, (2014) United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees


Uhlmann, Chris, Interview with Scott Morrison, Minister for Immigration, 7:30

Report (ABC Television) 18 July 2013


Vanstone, Amanda, immigration minister of Australia, quoted in ‘‘Smuggling

crackdown’ enables refugee boost’ Lateline, ABC News (online) 26 March 2004

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1074961.htm

Von Vacano, Diego, A., The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin

American/Hispanic Political Thought (Oxford University, 2012)

Walsh, Max, ‘Immigration policy in disrepute’, The Sydney Morning Herald

(Sydney), 19 May 1990

Ward, Ian, ‘The Tampa affair, wedge politics and a lesson for political journalism’

(2002) 24(1) Australian Journalism Review

Wilson, Lauren, ‘Rudd, PNG agree to fight against “common enemy” of people

smugglers’, The Australian (online) 15 July 15 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/16/uk-continue-med-migrant-rescue-operation-hms-bulwark

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/16/uk-continue-med-migrant-rescue-operation-hms-bulwark



http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1074961.htm

98

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/rudd-png-agree-to-

fight-against-common-enemy-of-people-smugglers/story-fn59nm2j-1226679665489

Wilson, S., Meagher, G., Gibson, R., Denemark, K. D. and Western, M. ‘Australian

Social Attitudes: the First Report’ (Sydney, UNSW Press, 2005)

Winder, Robert, Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain (Abacus,

London, 2006)

